How to recover LTC sent by mistake to a BTC wallet

Bitcoin and Litecoin are technically very similar cryptocurrencies, with Litecoin being a fork of Bitcoin created in 2011.

Their wallet addresses are also technically the same. If you have created a BTC wallet and have its key, you are the owner of the same LTC address and can open it with your existing BTC keys.

Given the average user experience in crypto-currency interfaces is improving yet due to their inherent complexity, one can accidentally transfer an X amount of LTC to a BTC address. Well, at least I did.

This post will describe how I have discovered that my LTC tokens could be recovered even if I had transferred them to the wrong address - in this case a known BTC address.

Networks do not communicate

The fact is: that sending LTC to a BTC address does not make the coins never leave the original network. Litecoins sent by mistake are always and only in the LTC network. In this case, as we used a Bitcoin address, the transfer was validated because it is the same format and this address is also valid on the LTC network.

So where is the LTC? On the Litecoin network, at the address provided. And how to recover litecoins? If the person has control of the BTC wallet, they can recover the tokens.

The wallets are similar

A Bitcoin wallet is nothing more than private keys (the keys that are used to sign a transaction) and recovery seeds. Litecoin works exactly the same, including the multisig wallet.

Therefore, the wallet recovery procedure starts in the Bitcoin wallet. And you will learn about the blueprint of the operation below.

Wallets contain keys, not coins

To recap: we send LTC to a “BTC” address. We have already discussed that the coins did not end up on the BTC network, however, the destination address is inviolable and we cannot undo the transaction.

The solution here, paradoxically, lies in the BTC wallet. Once we have this wallet with the destination address, we can retrieve the same address on the LTC network.

In practice, as the networks are similar, a BTC address has parity in the LTC network, and we can take control of both networks with the Private Key or recovery seeds.

Recovering the wallet on the LTC network

To take control of the address on the LTC network we need the private keys of the BTC wallet. Each wallet has a procedure, but there are basically three possibilities:

• The wallet allows you to export private keys;
• The wallet is non-encrypted and you can access the private key in the wallet files;
• The wallet is encrypted and we will need to recreate this wallet.

Look for the first two options and if you have access to the private key, skip the next step.

Decrypting a crypto wallet

If the wallet is encrypted you can still recover it. We can recreate it without encryption. Of course, for this, you need to have the seed phrase. Recovery keys must always be stored, as they are the only way to open the black box of a crypto wallet.

• Create a BTC wallet;
• The new wallet must be a redemption from the seed phrase;
• The new wallet must be non-encrypted.

With the wallet decrypted, we can open the wallet file and access the private keys — which takes us to the next step. It would also be possible to generate the private-key with the seed phrase and the https://iancoleman.io/bip39/ tool.

Taking control of LTC address with BTC private keys

Once you have the private keys for the LTC address that received the tokens, you must start creating the LTC wallet using the private keys.

• Create an LTC wallet;
• The new wallet must have the same signers number (if it is multisig);
• The new wallet must be a restoration from the private keys.

The LTC wallets that I recommend for the process are:

• Multisig address: core wallet
• segwit address: electrum wallet

Once you have the wallet, just redirect the coins to a definitive LTC address. But if you have sent the coins to an address you don't have the keys you won't be able to recover them unless you know the owners.