Samourai Wallet Seized? How to Recover Access After the Shutdown

Samourai Wallet was seized and shut down by US authorities in 2024, and the app no longer works. Your coins were never inside the app; they sit on the Bitcoin blockchain, so the shutdown removed the software, not the funds. What still matters is the backup: a valid seed phrase, plus the passphrase if you set one, restores the wallet in compatible software. A preserved Samourai backup file, samourai.txt, is another route: it is encrypted with your wallet passphrase, and Sparrow Wallet can import it. Keep any remaining backup files or wallet data; lacking a written phrase alone does not establish that there is nothing to recover from.

What happened to Samourai Wallet

Samourai Wallet was especially famous for advanced privacy tools like CoinJoin mixing (Whirlpool) and transaction obfuscation. It launched in 2015. According to the indictment, the app had been downloaded more than 100,000 times.

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Samourai Wallet’s co-founders, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, accusing them of running an unlicensed money-transmitting business and helping move criminal funds through the wallet’s privacy features. Prosecutors alleged that Samourai had executed over $2 billion in unlawful transactions.

In July 2025, as part of a plea agreement, both founders pleaded guilty to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. In November 2025 the court sentenced Rodriguez to five years in prison and Hill to four (US Department of Justice, Southern District of New York).

Can you still use Samourai Wallet today?

Not as it used to work. With the arrests, law enforcement seized Samourai’s web servers and its samourai.io domain, and a seizure warrant served on Google Play means the app can no longer be downloaded there in the United States. Official development and support have stopped. Samourai’s Whirlpool service went inactive, and an installed app that isn’t connected to a self-hosted Dojo server no longer receives updates about its transactions. Treat any site that offers a “Samourai” download or asks for your recovery phrase as fake: the project’s own domains are gone.

Despite this, your Bitcoin is still recoverable. Your funds stay on the blockchain, not inside the wallet app itself. To regain access, import your seed phrase, or your samourai.txt backup, into another compatible wallet.

How to recover funds from a discontinued Samourai Wallet

Before you start, gather three things: a valid 12-word seed phrase, your passphrase if you used one, and a compatible wallet to restore into. A wallet created in Samourai normally has a passphrase: the app required one when it created a new wallet, and it used the same passphrase to encrypt its backups. Only a wallet restored into Samourai from another app can be without it. We recommend Sparrow Wallet, Electrum Wallet or BlueWallet, as they are commonly used and compatible options; download them only from their official sites.

Sparrow has two features built for Samourai wallets. Its File menu has Import Wallet..., which offers a Samourai Backup option that reads the samourai.txt file with your passphrase, and it can add Samourai’s Whirlpool accounts (see below).

Enter the words in the exact same order, without typos. Even one wrong letter can make the entire phrase invalid. The same applies to the passphrase: one incorrect symbol or character can block access to your funds.

Step-by-step Samourai Wallet recovery using Electrum

To use Electrum for Samourai Wallet recovery, you’ll need to:

• Download & install Electrum Wallet.
• Create a new wallet and choose “I already have a seed”.
• Enter your Samourai Wallet seed phrase in the correct order. Click Options and tick BIP39 seed, so Electrum reads the words as a BIP39 phrase rather than its own seed format, and tick Extend this seed with custom words to enter your passphrase.
• On the Script type and Derivation path screen, click Detect Existing Accounts, or choose the script type yourself. Samourai’s main account can hold funds on native SegWit (m/84'/0'/0'), nested SegWit (m/49'/0'/0') and legacy (m/44'/0'/0') addresses at the same time; if Detect Existing Accounts finds more than one, restore the phrase again for each.
• Set a strong password for your wallet.
• Electrum will display your balance and transactions.

Then check that the balance matches the amount you expected and that there are no surprises. If it doesn’t, work through the problems below.

Troubleshooting common Samourai Wallet recovery issues

A restore can fail for several reasons, from an invalid seed phrase or passphrase to compatibility issues and incorrect derivation paths.

Invalid or incomplete seed phrase

If your seed phrase is invalid or incomplete, the first step is to check for typos in the words. You can verify each word using the BIP‑39 word list if needed, and confirm that the 12 words are in the exact order you originally received them. The same applies to missing words: check the words you have against the list. Crypto Recovers works with phrases that are missing up to four words and can brute-force the gaps using the right tools, which can save you a significant amount of time.

Lost or forgotten passphrase

A forgotten passphrase becomes a structured search against the remaining wallet data and a known public address. Write down any possible password combinations, symbols, names, dates or patterns you remember; these details can help focus the search. Whether that search is realistic depends on an assessment of the complete case.

Wallet compatibility issues

Another common issue is wallet compatibility. Since Samourai is a Bitcoin wallet, recovery may fail if the wallet you’re using is not a Bitcoin wallet or it does not support the BIP‑39 standard. Outdated or unofficial wallet versions may not detect funds correctly.

Whirlpool, Ricochet and other privacy features affecting recovery

Samourai Wallet also uses some advanced privacy features such as Whirlpool (mixing), Ricochet, Dojo, and PayNyms. Because of this, your coins may not appear right away. Funds sent through Whirlpool or Ricochet use separate accounts of the same seed, on their own derivation paths. When you scan only the standard addresses, those outputs stay hidden. Samourai’s source code places them on these paths, all native SegWit:

In Sparrow, open the restored wallet’s Settings tab, click Add Account... and choose Whirlpool Accounts to add the premix, postmix and bad bank accounts. In Electrum, restore the phrase again for each account and type its derivation path on the Script type and Derivation path screen.

How Crypto Recovers can help you recover Samourai Wallet access

If part of the 12-word seed phrase survives, a search for the missing words, up to four of them, may be realistic. That turns on how many words are missing, whether their positions are known, and whether a known public address is available to test candidates against. A forgotten or invalid passphrase can also be assessed against a known public address.

We’ve done Bitcoin wallet recoveries since 2019 and have refined our cracking techniques and developed custom brute‑force tools over the years. You can meet with our team either in person at our Amsterdam office or online to discuss your recovery chances; how a recovery works explains each step.

If the seed phrase is gone completely and no samourai.txt backup or old phone with the wallet survives, there is nothing left to recover from. If such material does survive, it can be assessed. Old wallets from discontinued apps like this one fall under our legacy wallet recovery service.

We begin work only after signing a legal agreement to protect your data and funds, and there’s no upfront payment. Our fee is success-based and negotiable for larger wallets. We never hold your coins or deduct anything from the wallet: if access is restored, you move the coins yourself to a new wallet you created, and you pay the agreed fee yourself, separately, only after a successful recovery.

FAQ: Samourai Wallet

What happened to Samourai Wallet?

Samourai Wallet was shut down after U.S. authorities charged its founders with running an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The founders pleaded guilty in 2025 and received prison sentences, which ended the project’s operations.

Are my funds lost forever now that Samourai Wallet has been seized?

No. The seizure removed the software, not the coins — they sit on the Bitcoin blockchain. If you still have your seed phrase and, where you set one, your passphrase, you can move your Bitcoin to another compatible wallet. If some words are missing, there may still be a route: Crypto Recovers works with phrases missing up to four words, and the search depends on whether you know the positions they sat in and whether an old receiving address is available to check candidates against.

How do I recover my Bitcoin from Samourai Wallet?

To recover your Bitcoin from Samourai Wallet, you need your seed phrase and, if you used one, your passphrase. Import them into a compatible wallet such as Sparrow Wallet, Electrum Wallet, or BlueWallet, and check that the balance matches what you expect before doing anything else. If you used Whirlpool, add the Whirlpool accounts as well, or part of the balance stays hidden.

What if my seed phrase isn’t working during recovery?

If your seed phrase is not working during recovery, the cause is often a typo, a missed word, or a missing passphrase. Check each word against the BIP-39 list and confirm you entered them in the original order before assuming the phrase itself is wrong.