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  • What should I do if a scammer obtained access to my crypto wallet?
  • Are there any further risks other than losing the money contained within it ?
  • Will he use it to perform transactions on my behalf?

After I told him my email, he provided me with a password to log into the wallet and then asked me to change the password to be safe (I realized too late that changing password doesn't make any difference if he already backed up the seed).

I used my email to confirm and verify this wallet so it is tied to my email. Also, in order to purchase BTC, I had to do KYC in Changelly, coinmama and paybis. After the money arrived to that compromised wallet I willingly sent them to the addresses he provided to take part in a mining pool. Was it actually a mining service?

The wallet is empty and has been used to send BTC to the addresses provided by a scammer on whatsup. I did send BTC to this person because he was promising returns on mining cycles every 20 days (I know, super dumb). I know my investment is gone and I will never get my money back, but my concern is related to having a wallet in which the seed phrase can be used by someone other than me especially criminals.

  • there would be any interest to them in using this wallet for some nefarious activity?
  • are there any risks associated with having a seed phrase known by a criminal?

I understand wallets are disposable and can be generated infinitely, but my concern is tied to the fact that something so disposable can be yet unique.

Thank you very much to whoever takes time to understand my situation and answers my concerns, are these real concerns or I am just overly paranoid about this situation, Did he wanted only my "investment" or there is something larger that I am missing?

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What should I do if a scammer obtained access to my crypto wallet?

Abandon the wallet. Do not ever use it again, since the scammer has full access to it.

Are there any further risks other than losing the money contained within it?

If your account is KYC'd and the scammer has access to it, then the scammer could use the account to engage in nefarious/illegal activity, that authorities may attempt to later pin on you. It would perhaps be prudent to contact the business you gave KYC info to, to tell them that the account has been compromised, and that you want it closed, etc.

Will he use it to perform transactions on my behalf?

Maybe? Only the scammer will know the answer to this.

after the money arrived to that compromised wallet I willingly sent them to the addresses he provided to take part to the mining pool. Was it actually a mining service?

No, it was just a scam. Mining involves operating power-intensive specialized computer hardware (ASIC machines). If you do not own and operate these machines, but are being asked to 'invest in mining', then I can pretty much guarantee you are falling victim to some level of scammery.

This question may be of interest to you: How do I recover from a cryptocurrency scam?

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  • @Casio_1 the bitcoin network does not track any 'verification/KYC info', that information is at most held by third parties (that can then attempt to map that information onto bitcoin network activity). If I had to guess, it seems most likely that the scammer simply wanted your money (via the 'mining scam'), and is not attempting some convoluted identity theft scheme (which would be more of a worry if the scammer had direct access to the account you provided KYC info to). Once you send funds out of the KYC'd account, there is plausible deniability (did you send them to someone else? etc).
    – chytrik
    Jan 3, 2022 at 0:53
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I understand wallets are disposable and can be generated infinitely, but my concern is tied to the fact that something so disposable can be yet unique.

Perhaps this related question would be of interest to you: Is it possible to brute force bitcoin address creation in order to steal money?

Essentially, there are 2^160 possible addresses. This number looks simple, but it is so insanely gigantically large that even though you can generate a new one super easily, you will never in the lifetime of the universe, randomly generate the same address as someone else.

TL;DR throw away your wallet and make a new one. There is absolutely no reason to keep that one.

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