5 Bitcoins Dormant for 10 Years Recovered by a $15 Claude Chat
- Core Takeaway: A Bitcoin holder utilized Anthropic's AI chatbot, Claude, at a cost of just $15, to successfully recover 5 Bitcoins that had been dormant for over a decade, valued at approximately $320,000. However, the community questions whether the AI was merely responsible for file retrieval rather than directly cracking the wallet.
- Key Elements:
- The individual, known as Cprkrn, submitted all his college-era paper notes, old laptops, and other materials to Claude for analysis, eventually recovering a forgotten old password and a critical wallet backup file.
- Claude analyzed over 1GB of data in total, including two Mac devices, external hard drives, notes, emails, and chat records, completing the search over eight weeks.
- Before succeeding, Claude tested over 3.5 trillion passwords (including 34 billion BTCRecover attempts and 3.4 trillion Hashcat tests), all of which failed.
- On-chain records show that the recovered wallet address had been dormant since early 2015, and on May 13th, approximately 5 Bitcoins were transferred out in five separate transactions.
- Industry reports indicate that due to factors like forgotten seed phrases and lost private keys, approximately 2.3 to 4 million Bitcoins (11%–19% of the total Bitcoin supply) are currently in a permanently irretrievable state.
Original author: Brayden Lindrea
Original compilation: Chopper, Foresight News
A Bitcoin holder sparked heated discussion on X after claiming he used Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude to recover approximately 5 Bitcoin worth $320,000 that had been dormant for over a decade.
Recently, anonymous X user Cprkrn said in an interview with MTS that he had set up extremely complex multi-layer passwords on Blockchain.info in his early years, and after several subsequent modifications, one set of passwords was completely forgotten.
Cprkrn revealed that over the past eight weeks, he attempted to brute-force trillions of password combinations using AI, but made no progress.
Then, early this week, as a last-ditch effort, he compiled all his college-era paper notes, old laptops, and other materials, handing them all over to Claude for analysis and retrieval. Ultimately, AI helped him recover the long-forgotten old passwords along with a critical wallet backup file, which he used to successfully unlock the long-dormant Bitcoin wallet.
Industry reports indicate that due to forgotten seed phrases, lost private keys, and permanent asset destruction, approximately 2.3 million to 4 million Bitcoin are currently unrecoverable, accounting for 11%–19% of Bitcoin's total supply. Commercial services dedicated to helping users recover lost crypto assets have even emerged in the market.
So, how did Cprkrn recover his Bitcoin using Claude?
The seed phrase search spanned eight weeks. Claude helped him search and sort through vast amounts of data, including two Mac devices, two external hard drives, Apple Notes export files, iCloud emails, Gmail inbox, and X chat records, analyzing over 1 GB of data in total.
One of the devices was his old college computer, where Claude found a critical wallet backup file dated December 2019.
Subsequently, with Claude’s help, Cprkrn deduced passwords based on memory clues in his paper notes, successfully decrypted the backup file, and ultimately extracted the seed phrase for the dormant wallet, thereby unlocking a stash of Bitcoin.
Although Cprkrn did not provide direct evidence of the Claude device search process, he shared a Blockchain.com block explorer link: wallet address 14VJy…ofuE6 transferred approximately 5 Bitcoin in 5 transactions on May 13.
On-chain records show that this batch of Bitcoin had been dormant since early 2015, inactive for over a decade.
The recovery process was not accomplished overnight. Before succeeding, Claude tested over 3.5 trillion passwords. Claude first invoked the open-source seed phrase recovery tool BTCRecover and Python programs to brute-force approximately 34 billion password combinations, which ended in failure.
Subsequently, using the password cracking tool Hashcat, it continued testing 3.4 trillion passwords, all of which also failed.
The entire massive search and password computation cost only $15 in AI computing power, and Claude has since compiled and organized the complete recovery process.
Although Cprkrn successfully recovered his Bitcoin, many netizens in the crypto community believe the individual exaggerated Claude's actual role. Some argue that Claude was only responsible for file searching and sorting, not directly cracking the wallet, and thus it cannot be considered a breakthrough technical feat.
Reddit user MeteorSwarmGallifrey commented on a tech board: "From start to finish, Claude just helped him search and organize files, without performing any groundbreaking cracking behavior."
