Brave Wallet changed Solana address after import backup

Brave Wallet (Self Custody)
1

Hello,

In January, I created a Brave Wallet because I needed a Solana address to migrate some tokens from Terra. This migration process involved sending my tokens to a burn address while including my Solana address in the transaction memo. Additionally, I imported my Ethereum account into the Brave Wallet just to test it. After that, I didn’t use the wallet again.

In March, I had to reinstall Windows. Recently, I tried to recover my Brave Wallet using the 12-word recovery phrase to check whether the migration had taken place. While my Ethereum account was restored correctly, but the Solana address seems to have changed. I’m certain of this because it no longer matches the memo used in the Terra migration transaction. Since I created the wallet specifically for this purpose, I’m confident I entered the correct Solana address in the transaction memo.

When I search for the old Solana address in the Solana Explorer (https://explorer.solana.com/), it shows “Account does not exist.” but I’m not sure if that matters because I get the same message when I search for the new Solana address generated by Brave Wallet. I know the Terra migration hasn’t occurred yet, so it makes sense that the old address has no balance.

I’ve deleted the wallet data and re-imported it using the same 12-word phrase, and I continue to get the same (new) Solana address.

Is the issue occurring on a specific network?

Yes, Solana.

What operating system are you using?

Windows 10.

Brave Version (check About Brave):

1.78.97.

Additional Information:

In the Solana account, it now shows as “Solana + SVM.” I’m not sure if it appeared that way back in January or if it just said “Solana” (I think it was the same).
I don’t have the private key for the Solana account, as I created the wallet using Brave and only backed up the 12-word recovery phrase.

Is there any way to recover the original Solana address?

Thanks in advance.
Best regards

2

Hello! Thanks for reaching out.

The Solana addresses related to your recovery phrase are fixed and do not change.

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/16291144373261-BIP-39-Recovery-Phrase

Did you import the Solana address previously instead of creating it in Brave Wallet? If you imported the original Solana address into BW, you’ll need the Private Key or original recovery phrase to recover that address.

The Account does not exist messaging in the Solana Explorer means there is no Solana on the address. If SOL was added to it then the message would no longer appear.

Let me know if I can help clarify anything else. Thanks!

3

Hello,
thanks for your quick response.

Did you import the Solana address previously instead of creating it in Brave Wallet?

No, I’ve never had a Solana address before until I got It from the BW.

The Account does not exist messaging in the Solana Explorer means there is no Solana on the address. If SOL was added to it then the message would no longer appear.

Understood, so it does not really matter…

So, do you know something I could do in order to get the old Solana address back?
The way these things work, I can see how this is going to end, but all this doesn’t give me enough security to keep using it.

Thanks

4

You can try creating a 2nd or 3rd Solana account in your Brave Wallet to see if one of those addresses may have been used instead of Account 1.

If you want the old Solana address back, you’ll need to use the original recovery phrase or private key associated with it. If you no longer have it, then the address is likely lost.

5

No, that did not bring back the old address.

As I’ve said, I don’t have any private key. Back then, I created a new BW with a Solana account and stored only the 12-word recovery phrase, which is what Brave gave me. I did not create the Solana account by myself on any other platform, so I don’t have anything from Solana. You say “If you no longer have it,” but I never had it. Brave did not give me that by itself. Now I see that for every account, you have the option to export that individually, which gives you the private key, but back then I did not know that it was needed to export private keys account by account. I just believed that having the recovery phrase was enough (as it is in any other wallet). I don’t know what happened or why the old Solana account has been lost, but yes, I understand that if the wallet recovery gave me a different address, there is not much to do without the private key. It’s just that I have lost trust in BW and I’m going to avoid using it.

Anyway, thank you for your time.
Regards.

6

Please note, once a Solana address is generated from a specific seed phrase, it remains constant unless the seed phrase is changed or a new wallet is created.

You can learn more here: https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/16291144373261-BIP-39-Recovery-Phrase

Thank you again

7

Yes I know it should, that was what I trusted when I created it, but apparently it is not, now I’m reading some some post about users with similar problems that somehow Brave wallet has generated a new addresses in their accounts, so since I trusted in BW recovery phrase and did not export every address private key now is lost…

8

Sorry for the trouble! The recovery phrase and addresses do not change. This is hardcoded. The derivation path could be the culprit, but we’ve supported different derivation paths for Solana since 1.46x.

Can you confirm you created the wallet directly in Brave and did not import from another wallet or hardware wallet like a Ledger?

Do you see the same addresses if you import your recovery phrase into another wallet, such as Phantom or BackPack? If so, that should confirm the issue is not with BW, but with the recovery phrase used.

9

I’ve never had a Solana account, so yes, I’m sure I created the wallet directly in Brave.
I tried to import it in Phantom, and by default, it only found the Eth account because it checked for any “activity” in the account, then searching inside the wallet itself I found the way to add the Solana account and it was the same new address.

I don’t know how that deviation works nor BW or Solana address creation, I don’t know where is the issue but definetly there is a issue since I’m not the only one with this problem, in the Phantom instructions after create an account recomends to send it a small amount of SOL, maybe that was the problem (to create a new account and not use it), so after some months without opening againt, when I imported the BW since no account with activity was found it just created a new one. I don’t know but it is sad…

10

Can you point me to the other similar reports you’ve seen?

11
12

These sound similar, but are only related in the sense that the wrong recovery phrase was utilized or the import process was mismanaged.

Unfortunately, two of these are describing using an incorrect recovery phrase or difficulties with importing the private key. One is related to a Trust wallet import and using multiple Solana addresses. The fourth is for the legacy crypto wallet and the 24 word seed phrase, which is no longer relevant.

If you imported your recovery phrase into Brave Wallet and Phantom and do not see the Solana account, that will tell you that the recovery phrase is not related to the desired address.

In March, I had to reinstall Windows. Recently, I tried to recover my Brave Wallet using the 12-word recovery phrase to check whether the migration had taken place.

If you reinstalled and did not have your recovery phrase backed up prior, you would have received a different one after the Brave install.

Please let me know if I can provide any further clarity. Thanks again!

13

These sound similar, but are only related in the sense that the wrong recovery phrase was utilized or the import process was mismanaged.

I don’t agree with you, you are just assuming that is not a BW problem so it must be a wrong recovery phrase, 3 of them where automatically closed without the user saying “its solved” (they just gave up), the first one remain open, but the user clearly said he give up and it will be automatically closed aswell.

Unfortunately, two of these are describing using an incorrect recovery phrase or difficulties with importing the private key. One is related to a Trust wallet import and using multiple Solana addresses. The fourth is for the legacy crypto wallet and the 24 word seed phrase, which is no longer relevant.

The fourth is the one about Trust wallet import, and I agree is not exactly the same case, but also describe problem getting a “wrong” Solana address.
I think the one you say about the 24 word seed is the third one, but that is what the support team assumed, the user did not confirmed that, moreover, he said he was using the new Brave wallet in both devices, he mentions “crypto wallet” in his message so the information he gave is confusing and could be any of the two cases.
The other two you don’t mention are dated this year, and are not solved, one of them even had the wallet correctly working in other device, so no way he is using a wrong recovery phrase.

If you reinstalled and did not have your recovery phrase backed up prior, you would have received a different one after the Brave install.

I’ve said it several times now, I DO have the recovery phrase backed, it is working good for the imported Eth account but not for the Solana it created when I created the BW for the first time.

Please let me know if I can provide any further clarity. Thanks again!

No need, since you are assuming I did something wrong you wont provide me anything usefull but frustration. I am not saying the issue is on BW, maybe is about the deviation, or Solana or anything else that affect the account creation/recovery of the network or whatever. I just found that people with similar problems by the “Related articles” you can find at the end of this post, problably I could find more if I scan all this community posts or in other websites by googling, but why for? All the problems will be by somehow users fault… I just give up now as other have done.

I really appreciate that you tried to help me at first, but the feedback I’m getting is no longer useful, so I won’t continue with this discussion. Thank you again.