Frequently asked questions

Can you actually get my crypto back?

Sometimes. Often not. We won’t pretend otherwise — most stolen crypto is never recovered, and anyone who guarantees recovery before looking at your case is not being straight with you.

What determines the outcome is mostly where the funds went. If they landed at an exchange, there is a real, well-trodden path: identify the deposit, get a freeze request and subpoena in front of that exchange’s compliance team fast. If they went through a mixer, or were swapped and scattered across chains, the realistic outcome is often intelligence for law enforcement rather than money back. A trace tells you which situation you’re in — usually within minutes.

Do you ever ask for my seed phrase or private keys?

Never. Not once, not for any reason. Tracing only reads public blockchain data. Nobody who legitimately needs to trace your funds needs access to your wallet.

If anyone — including someone claiming to be from Recupero — asks for your seed phrase, recovery phrase or private key, it is a scam. Recovery scams specifically target people who have just been hacked, because they know you’re desperate. Please be careful.

How do you charge?

Three parts. The first run is a flat $999 diagnostic fee — the same price for everyone, no matter the size of the theft — which buys the investigation and an honest assessment of what is realistically recoverable. If you decide to proceed, the engagement is priced per case, because the work varies enormously with how the funds were moved and which venues are involved. Finally, a contingency fee of 10–15% of any funds actually recovered through the engagement.

“Recovered” means funds returned to you, or to a court-appointed custodian on your behalf. The contingency fee is invoiced within 14 days of a recovery event and due within 30 days. Recoveries more than 12 months after the engagement date aren’t subject to it.

We tell you the realistic recoverable figure before you commit to an engagement — the $999 diagnostic exists precisely so you aren’t paying to chase money that a trace shows is gone. It is non-refundable and is not credited against the engagement fee: the diagnostic and the engagement are distinct services with distinct deliverables. Your engagement letter sets out the full fee schedule.

We never take custody of your assets. Recovered funds go to you or your custodian; we invoice afterwards.

What do you need from me to start?

Three things: the address that was drained, the chain it was on (we auto-detect this from the address shape), and roughly when it happened. That’s it — paste the address and the trace starts.

How long does a trace take?

Usually minutes. A large or heavily-laundered case with thousands of hops takes longer, and the page updates live as it runs. If a trace can’t finish within its budget it tells you so and reports what it did reach — it will never quietly present a partial trace as complete.

Which blockchains do you cover?

Ethereum and the major EVM L2s (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche), plus Bitcoin, Solana, Tron, TON, Stellar, Cosmos/IBC, Hyperliquid, Sui and Aptos. We follow funds across chains through bridges, not just within one.

My theft was years ago. Is it too late?

No — the blockchain doesn’t forget, and old cases trace fine. Recovery odds do drop over time, because funds have usually reached their final destination and exchange records age. But an old trace is still worth running: dormant stolen funds sitting untouched at an identified address are a genuinely good scenario.

The funds went into a mixer like Tornado Cash. Now what?

We stop at the mixer and say so plainly, because that is the truth: a mixer deposit breaks the on-chain link. We can surface low-confidence candidate withdrawals as leads for an investigator to pursue, but we will not present a guess as a destination. That honesty matters — a fabricated “this is where it went” would fall apart the moment a court or an exchange looked at it.

The funds reached an exchange. Is that good news?

It’s the best realistic news. Exchanges hold real customer identity and can freeze balances. We identify the deposit address, tell you which exchange it belongs to, and generate the freeze request and subpoena-target paperwork aimed at that specific deposit. Speed matters enormously here.

How confident are the results? Could you be wrong?

Every finding carries an explicit confidence level, and we are deliberately conservative:

• High — cryptographic or protocol-level certainty (a bridge message confirming source and destination, an authoritative sanctions listing). Never assigned to a guess.
• Medium — a strong single-candidate value match.
• Low — a lead for human review. Where several paths are plausible we mark them ambiguous rather than picking one.

The rule we don’t break: we never invent a destination to fill a gap. If the trail ends, the report says the trail ends.

What do I actually get at the end?

A plain-English summary of where your money is now and what’s realistically recoverable; an interactive fund-flow graph; a transfers spreadsheet; an investigation brief; and, as part of a managed engagement, the recovery paperwork: exchange freeze requests, subpoena targets, SAR/STR drafts and a court-admissible exhibit pack with signed hashes.

Do you send the freeze letters and contact exchanges for me?

No — and that’s deliberate. Recupero drafts them; a human always decides what gets sent. Nothing is auto-sent to an exchange, issuer or regulator on your behalf. You or your counsel review, adapt and send.

Is this legal advice?

No. Recupero is investigative software, not a law firm, and nothing it produces is legal advice. The legal documents it generates are drafts for a qualified professional to review. See our Terms.

I'm a law firm / investigator working someone else's case. Can I use this?

Yes — that’s a core use case. Organizations, team members with roles, an audit log and a programmatic API are all built in. Invite your team from the Members page.

Who can see my case data?

Only your organization. Each org’s data is isolated, access is scoped by role, and we don’t sell data or use it for advertising. Details in our Privacy Policy.

Should I report the theft to the police as well?

Yes — report it, and do it early. Exchanges and courts act on law-enforcement process far more readily than on a private request, so an official report materially improves your odds. Recupero’s output is built to hand straight to investigators.