Woman couldn’t access her crypto wallet with $167,300 worth of Bitcoin. Then, a hacker came along

Although cryptocurrencies didn't gain much traction and were forgotten for almost a year after Bitcoin was created in 2009, a sudden surge in prices in 2016 brought them into the limelight. As many of those who had purchased Bitcoin for as little as $0.10 became millionaires overnight when the prices crossed $1,000, many were left racking their brains to remember the passwords to their Bitcoin wallets. A mother was recently able to retrieve her money with the help of hackers after she lost the password to her crypto wallet. Rhonda Kampert, from Illinois, first started investing in crypto back in 2013 when it wasn't considered a viable investment. At the time, Bitcoin was worth $78 each and Rhona decided that it might be worth a shot. "I used to listen to a radio talk show and they started talking about crypto and Bitcoin so I got interested," she told the BBC at the time. 

"Back then buying it was so complicated but I fumbled my way through the process and bought my coins," Rhonda added and revealed that she ended up spending some of her cryptocurrency over the next 12 months before forgetting about it. Then in 2017, as Bitcoin started gaining popularity and value, she remembered her purchase and quickly logged back into her device. However, she realized that she was missing some important login credentials which meant that she had lost access to her fortune. 

"I realized then that my printout had missed some digits on the end of my wallet identifier. I had a piece of paper with my password but no idea what my wallet ID was," Rhonda said. "It was awful. I tried everything for months but it was hopeless. So I kind of gave up," she added. Then in 2021, when bitcoin's value went up further, she realized that the money was just too much to let go. She then began scouring for solutions and soon met a father and son duo, Chris and Charlie Brooks. "After talking to the guys online for a while I trusted them enough to hand over all the details I could remember. Then I waited," she said. "Eventually we sat down together on a video call and watched everything happen. Chris opened the wallet and there it was. I just felt so relieved!" she added.

She then discovered that the wallet had three and a half bitcoin, which was worth $167,300, and offered them a 20 percent share. Following this experience, Rhonda has learned the importance of keeping the credentials safe and now keeps the rest of her Bitcoin securely locked in a hard drive, with the login pin close at hand. Typically, when you lose or forget your private key, only a seed phrase or recovery phrase can help you recover your crypto wallet. A seed phrase is extremely important for securing crypto wallets and also serves as a backup key to access digital assets if the wallet is lost or damaged.

However, if you lose that too, it's almost impossible to recover the lost money. According to Coinbase, if you lose the 12 words that represent the private key which is a seed, then there is a good chance that you will lose the crypto in your wallet as well.