$67 Million in Forgotten Cryptos: How to Claim Them Without Getting Scammed

Fifty million dollars found at the bottom of pockets. DeFi Saver, one of the oldest decentralized finance dashboards on Ethereum, claims to have located nearly $67 million in abandoned assets within the smart wallets of its users. The team announced the information on X and is opening a claims process for everyone to check if they are among the affected owners. This is not a treasure that fell from the sky: these tokens have never changed hands. They lie dormant in intermediary contracts that their holders have stopped consulting, perfectly invisible from a standard interface like MetaMask.

Key Points {#h-key-points}

• DeFi Saver has located nearly $67 million in abandoned tokens in the smart wallets (DSProxy contracts) of its users.
• These funds come from transaction dust, direct sends to the proxy address, and airdrops that were never claimed.
• The claim only requires the owner's signature and gas fees: any request for prior payment is a scam.
• The definitively lost cryptos amount to millions of BTC and hundreds of thousands of ETH frozen since the Parity bug.

How $50 Million Were Forgotten in DeFi {#h-how-50-million-were-forgotten-in-defi}

Launched in 2019, DeFi Saver allows automating position management on MakerDAO, Aave, Compound, Liquity, or Spark. Its interface can notably repay a debt before liquidation or bundle several operations, such as a flash loan, an exchange, and a repayment, into a single transaction.

To execute these strategies, DeFi Saver deploys a smart wallet linked to the user's main address. Historically, the platform notably uses DSProxy contracts inherited from MakerDAO. Each contract has its own Ethereum address, distinct from the one controlled directly by the private key.

This separation explains why some assets go unnoticed. A standard wallet does not automatically display tokens held by contracts associated with the main address. Over the years, several categories of funds have thus accumulated: leftovers left after closing a position, partially withdrawn collaterals, airdrops attributed to the proxy, or transfers made directly to the contract address.

Taken separately, these amounts can be very small. However, DeFi Saver has been operating for several years and has deployed smart wallets for many users. Their total would today amount to about $67 million.

Recovering Tokens Without Signing a Malicious Transaction {#h-recovering-tokens-without-signing-a-malicious-transaction}

DeFi Saver invites former users to connect to its official application using the address they employed when creating their position. The interface can then search for the associated smart wallets and display the assets still held there.

Withdrawal requires a transaction signed by the contract owner. In principle, the user should only pay the gas fees of the Ethereum network. DeFi Saver cannot recover the funds on their behalf, and a person who has lost their private key has no direct means to regain control of the proxy.

This campaign also constitutes a favorable ground for scams. Fake accounts, cloned sites, or private messages may promise accelerated recovery for a payment or a signature. A simple authorization granted to a malicious contract may be enough to empty the main wallet.

Users must therefore carefully verify the domain of DeFi Saver, refuse any prior payment requests, and never share their recovery phrase. It is also wise to check the content of each transaction before signing it.

These $67 million illustrate an old limitation of decentralized finance: funds can remain accessible on the blockchain while becoming invisible to their owner. Tracking tools and new smart account systems are gradually reducing this risk, but they do not replace the regular verification of contracts and addresses used.