Most people who lose Bitcoin did not get hacked. They lost the backup, wrote the seed down wrong, trusted a photo of it on a phone that died, or built a setup so clever that nobody, including them, could unwind it a few years later. I have spent since 2017 running walletrecovery.info and working the other end of that story, more than a thousand times. This service is the same knowledge pointed forward instead of backward.
Who this is for
You are holding, or about to hold, an amount of Bitcoin that would genuinely hurt to lose. Maybe it is on an exchange right now and you have decided that is not where it should stay. Maybe you bought a hardware wallet, set it up on a Saturday afternoon, and have had a quiet doubt about it ever since. Maybe you built something years ago and cannot remember why you made half the choices you made.
You do not need to be technical. You need to be willing to handle your own device and follow a process.
What we do
We work through it together in one session, in this order.
Threat model first, before any device comes out of a box. Who realistically comes after this: a remote attacker, a burglar, a family member, a customs officer, your own forgetfulness in fifteen years? The answers change every decision after this, and most bad setups are bad because this step was skipped.
Choose the hardware. If you already own a device, we use it. If not, I explain the tradeoffs between the ones I would actually put my own coins on, and you buy it yourself, from the manufacturer, so that no device I have touched ever holds your keys.
Generate the seed on the device, with me watching the process and not the words. You are on camera or across a table; the screen with the words on it is yours alone. I do not ask to see them, and if you offer, I decline.
Design the backup. This is where the real work is. Single metal plate or paper. Two copies in two buildings or one copy plus a passphrase. Shamir splits when the situation actually warrants them, and plain redundancy when it does not, because a split you do not understand is a loss waiting to happen. Multisig if, and only if, you will still be operating it correctly in five years.
Decide on a passphrase, deliberately. A BIP-39 passphrase is a second factor and a second thing to lose. We decide whether you want one, where it lives, and who else has to be able to find it.
Wipe the device and restore from your backup, before any funds go in. This is the step almost everyone skips and the one that catches almost every mistake. A backup that has never been restored is a hypothesis, not a backup. We turn it into a fact while the wallet is still empty.
Send a test transaction, then the rest. Small amount first, confirm it arrives, confirm you can move it back out, then fund properly.
Write it down. I produce a plain-language summary of exactly what we built: device, derivation, backup locations, passphrase policy, and the recovery procedure written for someone who was not on the call. You keep it. I keep no copy of your secrets, because I never had them.
What you leave with
A wallet you set up with your own hands and can operate without me. A backup that has been proven to restore, not assumed to. A written record of the decisions, in language your spouse or your executor could follow. And a clear answer to the question "what happens if I lose this device tomorrow," which most people holding Bitcoin cannot answer today.
What this is not
This is not investment advice, and I am not a licensed advisor. I will not tell you how much to buy, when to buy it, or which assets belong in your portfolio.
This is not custody. I never take possession of your coins, your keys, or your seed words at any point, and there is no version of this engagement where that changes.
This is not recovery. If access is already lost, the work is different and it lives at walletrecovery.info.
And it is not a certification. I can show you the failure modes I see most often and help you build past them. Nobody can promise a setup that cannot fail, and anyone who does is selling you something.
Questions I get about this
I already have a hardware wallet. Is there anything left to do?
Usually yes, and usually in the backup rather than the device. The device is the easy part. What I find is seed phrases that were never restore-tested, passphrases nobody else knows exist, backups stored in one building, and setups whose owner cannot say what happens if the manufacturer stops shipping firmware. A review is the shorter engagement, and it ends with a list of what to change and in what order.
Do I have to tell you how much Bitcoin I have?
No. The amount changes exactly one thing, which is whether a multisig setup is worth its ongoing operational cost to you, and you can answer that with a rough band rather than a number. I do not need an address, a balance, or a transaction history to do this work.
What if I do not own any Bitcoin yet?
That is the best time to do this. Setting up custody before there is anything to lose means the test restore costs nothing to get wrong, and you learn on an empty wallet instead of a full one. We can set up the wallet, run the restore, and only then move a small first amount in.