Just lost crypto? Here's the 15-minute playbook.

Sometimes — but only through three legitimate channels: (1) exchanges freezing funds before they're cashed out (works if you report within hours, not days), (2) law-enforcement seizure of mixer or exchange accounts, (3) civil court action against an identified person. Anyone promising 'guaranteed recovery' for a fee is running a recovery scam.

The first 15 minutes matter most. Stolen funds typically move through 3–6 wallets and into a mixer or exchange within an hour. The faster you alert centralized exchanges with the destination address, the better the chance of a freeze.

Most 'recovery services' that find you on Telegram, X, Reddit, or YouTube comments are recovery scams — a second scam targeting people who just lost money. Real recovery requires court orders, exchange compliance teams, and licensed forensic firms (Chainalysis, TRM Labs, CipherTrace) — not random DMs offering '100% money back'.

United States: ic3.gov (FBI) + ftc.gov/complaint. UK: Action Fraud. EU: your country's cybercrime unit + the receiving exchange's compliance email. Australia: Scamwatch. Always file with your local police too — many countries require a police report number before exchanges will share KYC data.

No. Blockchain transactions are irreversible. Anyone asking you to sign a 'reversal transaction', connect your wallet to a 'recovery dApp', or pay a 'gas fee to release funds' is stealing the rest of what you have. Disconnect everything and treat that wallet as compromised.

Open a ticket immediately with the exchange's compliance team (not regular support). Include the transaction hash, your account ID, and the destination address. Most major exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX) will freeze funds within hours if they receive a verified law-enforcement request.