The questions we are actually asked.
Answered without hedging, including the ones where the honest answer is unwelcome.
Common questions about crypto recovery
The questions most people ask after a crypto loss are whether funds can be recovered, how long an investigation takes, what it costs, and how to tell a legitimate investigator from a fraud. The answers below are direct, and they include the cases where the honest answer is that nothing useful can be done.
The questions that matter most.
No, and nobody can. Blockchain tracing identifies where funds went and whether an intervention point exists. Whether funds are returned depends on exchanges, courts and law enforcement, none of which we control. Anybody guaranteeing recovery is either mistaken or defrauding you.
A trace that reaches an identified service, documented well enough that your counsel or a police unit can act on it. Or, sometimes, a clear finding that the trail ends — which saves you from spending further money on a path that leads nowhere.
No. Contingency pricing rewards promising outcomes nobody controls, and it is the standard structure of recovery fraud. We charge for investigative work.
No. We hold no authority to freeze anything, anywhere. Only the service holding the assets can act, and generally only on legal process.
How an engagement actually runs.
The case assessment is free. If an investigation is worth running, the assessment states scope and price before any work begins.
Ideally a transaction hash, the address funds left from, the chain, the asset, the approximate amount and the date. If you have less than that, bring what you have — part of triage is telling you what else would change the answer.
It depends on hops, chains and whether funds entered constructions that break a trace. The assessment gives you a scope; we do not quote a standard turnaround because there is not one.
Yes. If analysis cannot produce anything useful, triage says so and the case stops there.
Yes. Case data is access-controlled and every access is logged. We do not publish customer cases; case studies on this site are synthetic and labelled.
Verifying us, and everyone else.
Never, under any circumstances. There is no field for them anywhere in this platform and no member of staff will ever request them. Anyone who does is defrauding you, whatever name they are using.
We do not contact people out of the blue about losses they have not submitted to us. Do not reply. Sign in to your account and check your messages there instead, and forward the message to security@chainwatchcrypto.com.
No. There is no legitimate arrangement in which you must send funds to receive funds that are already yours.
About the product itself.
No. Every address, score, case, alert and balance shown in any interface on this site is synthetic and carries an illustrative marker. Descriptions of capability, method, risk model weights and process are real.
The platform is designed around Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, BNB Chain, Polygon and Solana, with the analysis available stated per network. Confirm current coverage for your chain during an assessment.
Not by default. The portfolio surfaces in this build are labelled simulated and hold nothing. Any real custody would require custody, security and legal architecture established first.
Case management and monitoring come with an engagement. Direct platform and API access is available to organisations under a platform agreement.