What was actually taken
The holdings, the accounts and the dates, established in a form capable of supporting a claim.
Finance and crypto
Crypto recovery.
Cryptoassets that have been taken usually leave a record of having moved. People assume a record is the same thing as a remedy. It is not. Recovery turns on whether what is left sits somewhere a court can reach, and on whether there is anybody who can be made to give it back.
What this looks like when it goes wrong
The commonest version is an account reached by somebody who should not have been able to reach it. Credentials given up to a person who appeared legitimate, a device compromised, or a member of staff with more control than anybody had thought about. The transfer was made using your own means of authorising things, so nothing about it looked irregular while it was happening.
The next is an investment that was never an investment. Funds are deposited with a platform or an individual, the balance shown grows, and withdrawals work at first and then stop. Sometimes a payment is demanded before the balance can be released. The balance was a screen. What was deposited went elsewhere on the day it arrived.
Then there is the business that lost assets it was holding for other people. A custodian, an exchange or an operator fails, is compromised or simply stops answering, and people who thought they owned a holding find they own a claim against a company instead. Whether those are the same thing depends on what was agreed and on how the assets were actually held.
The quietest version is access lost rather than assets taken. A key holder dies, leaves, falls out with everybody else or forgets. Nothing has been stolen and nothing can be reached, and the legal question is who is entitled rather than who is to blame.
What actually decides it
The starting point in England and Wales is that cryptoassets have been treated by the courts as property capable of being owned and of being the subject of a claim. That position has been developed through decisions of the courts and through legislative work in this area, and it continues to move, so it should be checked rather than assumed. It matters because a claim to get an asset back is a different and frequently stronger thing than a claim for damages against somebody with no money.
The next question is where what remains has come to rest. Assets sitting with a business that has an identifiable operator, an established place of business and a reason to comply are in a different position from assets held by nobody you can name. The distinction is not about the asset. It is about whether there is a person or an entity at the other end who can be ordered to do something and who feels the consequences of refusing.
Jurisdiction decides more than most people expect. Where you are, where the person you are pursuing is, where the business holding the asset is established, and which country's courts will take the case are separate questions with different answers. A remedy granted here is only useful where it is recognised, and whether it will be recognised is a matter for the law of the other country.
Then there is what is proportionate. Proceedings of this kind carry cost and exposure, and applications made urgently carry obligations to the court that are demanding on the party making them. The decision is a commercial one about the value at stake against the cost and the risk of pursuing it, and it should be taken with the position described honestly rather than optimistically.
What we do
Whether it sits somewhere reachable
An honest view of whether what is left rests with anybody a court can reach.
Where the wrongdoer is unnamed
The routes that exist for pursuing assets before you can put a name to the person holding them, where the facts support it.
Preserving what remains
Steps to stop what is left from moving again while a claim is being brought.
Platforms and custodians
Dealing with businesses holding assets, and with insolvency where the business itself has failed.
Reserved work with partners
Court proceedings and reserved legal activities delivered with regulated partners, with the strategy and co ordination here.
When to spend nothing
Where nothing remains, nothing can be recovered, and no amount of work changes that. There are matters in which the honest answer is that the value was spent by somebody with no assets in a place with no interest in helping, and the right course is to stop, record the loss properly for your accountants and insurers, and move on. Being told that at the start is worth more than being told it after a long and expensive period of being encouraged.
Be careful of the second loss. People who have lost cryptoassets are approached by services promising recovery in return for a payment up front, and that approach is itself a common way of taking money from somebody who has already been taken from. Nobody can honestly promise to return what has been taken, and an offer that promises it is telling you something about itself.
Finance and crypto
More on finance and crypto
- Asset tracing
- Fraud response
- Structuring digital assets
- Counterparty intelligence
- Recovery and enforcement
Before anything is sent
Positions harden the moment the other side takes advice, and the quiet routes stop being available once a demand has gone out. While nothing has been sent, everything is still open.