BTC.com Wallet Recovery: How to Restore a Blocktrail Wallet

The BTC.com wallet was shut down in April 2022, and with it went the app, the website login and the official support channel. What didn’t go anywhere is your Bitcoin. Coins never sat on BTC.com’s servers; they sit on the blockchain, and the wallet was non-custodial, which means the keys were always yours. If you can produce the right backup material, the funds can still be reached today.

This guide explains what that backup material is, how to run the recovery yourself with the open-source Blocktrail tool, and what your options are when the tool fails or the password is gone. It covers both names you may know your wallet by: Blocktrail, the original Amsterdam-built wallet, and BTC.com, the name it carried after 2016.

Blocktrail and BTC.com are the same wallet

Blocktrail started as a Dutch bitcoin company, offering a consumer wallet and a developer API. In 2016 it was acquired by Bitmain, the Chinese mining hardware manufacturer, and the wallet was rebranded to BTC.com. In early 2022 BTC.com announced the shutdown of the wallet service and told users to withdraw their funds before April 2022.

Why does this history matter for recovery? Because your backup documents can carry either name. A Blocktrail wallet from 2015 and a BTC.com wallet from 2020 are recovered the same way, with the same tool and the same kind of backup file. If you have a PDF with the Blocktrail logo on it, this guide is about your wallet too.

What you need: the backup PDF and your password

When you created the wallet, it generated a PDF backup document, called the wallet recovery data sheet. That document contains the encrypted key material needed to rebuild your wallet. It’s the single most important item in the whole process: with it, recovery is a solvable problem; without it, there’s nothing to recover from.

So before anything else, find that PDF. Search old computers, external drives, USB sticks, printed papers and every email account you used in those years (search for “Blocktrail” as well as “BTC.com”). A printed copy may also be filed away, so check physical folders where you keep contracts and warranties.

The second item is the password you set on the wallet. Ideally you remember it. If you don’t, recovery can still be possible; more on that below.

One detail that trips people up: there were two generations of wallets. The consumer wallet (the iOS, Android and web app most people used) was a version 2 wallet. According to the documentation of the official recovery tool, a version 2 wallet can be recovered even without the password, provided you signed up with your email address and still control that mailbox. The older version 1 wallets, mostly developer API wallets, always require the password. Don’t count on the email route today, though: it needs a decryption key that Blocktrail’s servers sent by email, and those servers no longer respond. The current version of the tool asks you to request the key from BTC.com support instead, and whether that still works is uncertain.

Recovering it yourself with the Blocktrail recovery tool

Blocktrail published an open-source wallet recovery tool on GitHub, a standalone application that rebuilds your keys from the backup PDF and sweeps the balance to any Bitcoin address you provide. This is the honest first stop for self-recovery.

The steps:

1. Get the tool from the official GitHub repository (github.com/blocktrail/wallet-recovery-tool) and nowhere else. Fake “recovery tools” that exist to steal wallet backups do circulate.
2. Run it locally on a computer you trust. The tool runs in your browser, and its README explains how to serve it from your own machine; it only needs an internet connection to find your funds and to broadcast the final transaction. Your backup PDF and password should never be entered into a random website.
3. Import the backup PDF. The tool can read the QR codes from the file, though the QR detection is known to fail on poor scans; if it does, scan the QR code with a separate scanner app and enter the data manually, as the README describes.
4. Enter your wallet password. The email route for version 2 wallets is unlikely to work now (see above).
5. Set up a receiving address in a modern wallet you control, and let the tool sweep the full balance to that address.

Be aware that the tool is no longer maintained. Parts of it relied on services that have since been switched off, and users have reported that the hosted version fails for them. If the tool errors out on fund discovery, that doesn’t mean your Bitcoin is gone; it means the tool couldn’t reach the blockchain data services it was built to use, run by Blocktrail and later BTC.com. The keys in your PDF are still valid. If that happens, the section below on how we handle a BTC.com recovery explains the next step.

Forgot your BTC.com wallet password?

A forgotten password stops self-recovery at step 4, and it’s also the situation we know best. A lost password is rarely a fully random password. Start by writing down everything you still know: your password habits around that time, names, years and symbols you tended to use, and passwords you used elsewhere in that period. That list is the raw material for a structured search, the same approach we describe in our guide to recovering a forgotten Bitcoin wallet password.

Because the free tools kept failing on Blocktrail wallets, we built our own recovery software for this wallet type. It takes your list of password candidates, generates variations, and tests them against your backup file at high speed. We’ve recovered BTC.com wallets this way for clients who had the PDF, no password and no access to their old email. If you would rather run the search yourself, the open-source BTCRecover tool now also supports BTC.com (Blocktrail) wallet passwords; run it offline, on a computer you control. If you have the data sheet and even a rough memory of the password, it’s worth an assessment.

When is recovery impossible?

Honesty is cheaper than false hope, so here’s the hard limit: without the backup PDF, there’s no recovery. The data sheet is the only place the key material exists now that the servers are gone. No service, including ours, can rebuild a BTC.com wallet from a username, an email address or a transaction record alone. If someone promises you otherwise, you’re talking to a scammer. If you do have the PDF, almost every other problem is workable: a forgotten password, a damaged or badly scanned document, a tool that won’t run. Those are technical problems, and technical problems have odds.

How we handle a BTC.com recovery

We’ve done Bitcoin wallet recoveries since 2019, from our office in Amsterdam, a few kilometers from where Blocktrail was built. The process starts with a free assessment of your case, which needs no wallet files or passwords, so never send those as part of a first contact, to us or anyone else. If recovery looks feasible, we sign a contract before starting work. We work on a no recovery, no fee basis: our success fee is agreed in writing before any work starts, and it’s only due after you have your funds back. You can book a call or a visit to our office to talk through your situation. Wallets from services that no longer exist fall under our legacy wallet recovery service.

At no point do we hold your Bitcoin or any other client funds. Once the wallet is rebuilt, you move the balance yourself to a new wallet you’ve created, and you pay the agreed fee separately, as the contract sets out.

FAQ: BTC.com wallet recovery

Is my Bitcoin gone now that BTC.com shut down?

No. The BTC.com wallet was non-custodial, which means your Bitcoin is stored on the Bitcoin blockchain, not on BTC.com’s servers. The shutdown only removed the wallet service and customer support. If you still have your backup PDF and password, you can usually regain access to your wallet.

Can I recover a BTC.com wallet without the password?

Sometimes. Version 2 consumer wallets used to offer an email route, but it needs a decryption key from Blocktrail’s servers, which no longer respond, so don’t rely on it. If you forgot the password, it may be possible to recover it using structured brute-force techniques, provided you can supply likely password candidates. Without the original backup PDF, though, recovery isn’t possible.

Does the Blocktrail wallet recovery tool still work?

Partly. The Blocktrail recovery tool is still available as open-source software on GitHub, and it still rebuilds the keys from your backup PDF and password in your browser. The project is no longer maintained, though, and the online services it used to find your funds and relay the transaction no longer answer. If the tool fails at that stage, the problem is the missing service, not your wallet data.

Is the BTC.com backup PDF the same as the Blocktrail data sheet?

Yes. BTC.com was formerly known as Blocktrail before Bitmain acquired it in 2016. The branding changed, but the backup PDF kept the same purpose: whichever logo is on yours, it holds what the recovery tool needs to rebuild your keys.