Need assistance to recover a Bitcoin account

Hey everyone, I’m Peter, a tech guy helping my buddy Ron who’s locked out of his Bitcoin account after his old PC crashed and he got a new one. The problem is, I’m not savvy with Bitcoin stuff, and Ron isn’t either. He thinks he has the right info, but we’re totally lost on how to proceed. If anyone can lend a hand, please reach out to either Ron or me. We’d be super grateful. Thanks a lot... Peter My email: atyourhome@cogeco.ca Ron’s email: allisonronaldg@gmail.com

It would be much better to keep the discussion public. There are scammers that will probably message you. What do you have now? Do you have a seed phrase? A seed phrase is a series of words and it usually contains 12 or 24 words. Do you have a wallet file?

The phrase "Bitcoin account" is kind of unclear.  Bitcoin doesnt actually use traditional accounts.  Instead, it relies on a public record called the blockchain.  Users hold their coins in digital wallets, which have cryptographic keys letting them access and use them and  so it would help if you explained more what you mean by a Bitcoin account. Could you be a little more specific about that? What information does your customer have? You do not need to share the actual details publicly, but knowing what form they are in (username, password, recovery phrase, etc.) will help us determine the best way to recover his account.

Thank you for responding; This is the only email he can get in to; allisonronaldg@gmail.com , whether he used it for Bitcoin, he doesn't know. We have the password for this one. There are others which we cannot get into, no matter how hard we tried, they just send us in circles: ronaldaallison@gmail.com ron.allison@live.com  - (the oldest one he can remember) allisonronaldg@gmail.com  - this one is working, but don't know if it was used with Bitcoin or not. Seed phrase, and wallet file, he did have, but doesn't know or have them now. By Bitcoin account, I mean, anyway for him to get back into wherever, and whatever he needs to do, to retrieve his currency. Thanks hosseinimr93 and Stalker22

First, do not trust anyone who contacts you via PMs or email especially if he asks you to share sensitive information such as the wallet seed or the account credentials. To be able to help your friend get access  to his coins again, the first thing you need to know is where he did keep them (which tool he used to use to access them). Ask your friend if he was using a custodial wallet, in which case he will need a seed (12 to 24 words) to recover it, or an online service such as an exchange and in this case all he needs is the account credentials (username + password).

The email address may be helpful if he has fund on custodial services like centralized exchanges and used that email address for registration. If he had fund on a non-custodial wallet and he has neither the seed phrase nor the wallet file now, the fund is lost and there's nothing he can do. Does he have access to the hard drive of the old computer?

I think bitcoin wallet will be the proper term you are trying to write. Is this an account with email and password from an online wallet like blockchain, coinbase or even exchanges like Binance, bybit and such? If it's an online service and account for the wallet then you are looking at to recover the account to have access of your wallet. But if it is a desktop wallet like Electrum, Bitcoin core and such then you are looking at wallet file or seed phase [you client should have written it somewhere]. It difficult what you are trying to explain.

I am learning more about this as I go.  It is the Blockchain Wallet we are trying to access for which we think we know what the correct e-mail is or at least a new one he set up, but can't seem to determine what the password is on that.  He doesn't know what the seed phrase is and doesn't remember getting one.  We do have a # code for wallet, but not sure if this is for his new account to try to import the old one, but without a seed phrase it seems it will be a next to impossible task. Thanks for any help or guidance you can give.

For accessing your wallet on blockchain.com, you need your email address plus the password or your seed phrase. If you have neither the password nor the seed phrase, there is no way to access the wallet. I don't know what code you are talking about, but whatever it is, that's probably useless. As I said, you need to have the password or the seed phrase.

This is actually not correct, you need a WALLET ID which is xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx So telling this person there is no way to access the wallet if email and pass is gone is wrong... /KX

Can you access your wallet on blockchain.com if all you have is the wallet ID and you don't know the password? For logging into blockchain.com, you can use your wallet ID instead of your email address, but you still need your password and you still need to authorize your login via your email address.

There are various scenarios with various options, but if you have wallet ID to start, you can access and download the encrypted backup like here https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Usage_Examples/2020-05-08_Recovering_Blockchain_Wallet_Passwords/Example_Recovering_Blockchain_Wallet_Passwords/ If you have 2fa activated (not everyone does) it is needed to either use the phone app or mail, in case you lost the 2FA, it is still possible to reset it using this link https://support.blockchain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000286426-How-do-I-disable-two-step-verification-2FA Of course if you dont have anything, nothing is possible. Then if you managed to download the payload for the wallet, you can use various tools like btcrecover, johntheripper or hashcat to bruteforce the password. Of course having any idea of the password helps. If you do know email, but not wallet ID, you can go the other way around and request to get all WALLET IDs associated with that email, you can do this here: https://login.blockchain.com/en/#/login?product=wallet Hope this brought clarity to the ways you can recover your BTC from blockchain.com Good luck! /KX