Founded in 2011, BitPay is a wallet that allows its users to transfer funds in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and three other major cryptocurrencies. As of today, it is available in 38 countries letting users pay in cryptocurrencies for the goods and services they purchase. It also offers a funds processing service for merchants, allowing them to receive funds directly to their bank accounts in the form of cryptocurrencies. Thus, it will be a major problem, big enough to make your heart palpitate if you forget your wallet password or become unable to use the current wallet for other reasons. Thankfully, there are multiple ways to recover your BitPay wallet.
In this article, we will demonstrate the BitPay wallet recovery procedure if you forget its password. We will also show how to transfer your fund from one wallet to another if you’re unable to use your current one. Without further ado, let’s start.
Recovering Your Wallet on BitPay with Credentials or Backup
As long as you have the 12-word recovery phrase for BitPay, you are capable of gaining access to your wallet anytime, even if you forget your wallet’s encrypted password. That remains true even if you have never backed up your wallet. In this section, you will see a handful of ways to use the 12-word recovery phrase to recover your BitPay wallet.
How to Recover the Encrypted Wallet from a Backup?
Did you back up your BitPay wallet? If so, then you can easily use the 12-word recovery phrase to delete the current wallet and import it back using the backup. But before you add data from the backup, you need to erase the current wallet. Let’s show you how to do it.
Deleting the Wallet
Here’s what you need to do to remove the current wallet before importing it from the backup:
- Open the BitPay wallet app on your phone.
- Next, at the bottom of your screen, tap on the gear icon in the “Tabs” bar.
- After that, choose the key that contains the wallet under the “Crypto Wallets & Keys” section.
- Now, scroll down until you see the “Delete” option under the “Advanced” section and tap on it.
- Next, tap on the “Delete” option again to confirm your action.
With this, you have successfully deleted your wallet. Now, you need to import the wallet from the backup using the aforementioned recovery phrase.
Importing the Wallet
This is what you must do to add the old wallet via the 12-word recovery phrase:
- Open the BitPay wallet app on your smartphone again.
- Now, tap on the gear icon at the bottom of the screen.
- Next, tap on the “Create or import a key” under the “Crypto Wallets & Keys” section.
- After that, tap on the “Import Wallet” option.
- Now, enter the 12-word recovery phrase in the empty section.
- Finally, tap on the “IMPORT” button. Your wallet has now been successfully recovered.
Recover Your BitPay Wallet By Clearing the Encrypt Password
Even if you haven’t backed up your BitPay wallet, you can still achieve the same result with the phrase. In this method, the recovery phrase will be used to clear the current encrypted password, which would restore the wallet. Here’s how to proceed:
- Repeat step 1 above.
- Now, tap on the “Gear” icon located in the “Tabs bar” and select your wallet key.
- In the next menu, keep scrolling until you see the “Clear Encrypt Password” option and then select it.
- After that, type the 12-word recovery phrase and confirm it.
Once you complete all the steps we have mentioned above, you can remove your encrypted password and retrieve the wallet.
How to Recover Funds If You Can’t Use BitPay Anymore?
If you’re unable to use your current BitPay wallet anymore, you can always use the Copay Recovery Tool, which is open-source software available on GitHub. It lets you rescue your funds and transfer them to a different wallet. It’s important to note that the fund transfer using the Copay Recovery Tool is a client-side process that uses the backup of your original wallet. As your private key will be limited only to your device, BitPay will not gain any kind of access to it. Therefore, your funds will be completely safe. Now, let’s demonstrate how to use Copay Recovery Tools to retrieve the funds from an unusable BitPay wallet.
- First, open your browser and go to the Copay Recovery Tool.
- Now, under the “Chain” section, select your current wallet configuration. The major configurations are:
- “btc/livenet” for Bitcoin
- “bth/livenet” for Bitcoin Cash
- “eth/livenet” for Ethereum
- “bsv/livenet” for Bitcoin SV
- “xrp/livenet” for Ripple
- Next, type the “12-word recovery phrase” under the “Backup for copayer 1” section. Fill the remaining blank spaces and sections too if any sort of change is needed.
- After that, click on the small box beside the “I have read and accept Terms and Conditions” text.
- Once you accept the terms and conditions, click on the “Scan Wallet” button. Now, your wallet will be analyzed, and you can see the balance available in the wallet shortly.
- Now, if you want to transfer your balance to a different wallet address, type the receiving address of your choice in the “Destination Address” box, and click on the “Transfer” button. With this, your funds will be transferred to a different wallet.
Please Note: If you were unable to recover your funds, check and perform one of the following actions to fix the error:
- Make sure that the “Chain” you have selected is correct. For example, if your wallet contains cryptocurrency in the form of Ethereum, you must choose the “eth/livenet” option. If you don’t select the appropriate chain, your funds will not show up, and you won’t be able to transfer them.
- The “Address Gap” is set to “20” by default. If you’re unable to recover your fund, try increasing your address gap’s value to 40, 80, 100, 120, and so on.
- If you have multiple wallets with the same recovery phrase, you have to increase the value of the “Account” section accordingly to recover your funds.
