A Bitcoin holder has captured widespread attention online after revealing he successfully retrieved approximately $400,000 in Bitcoin from a wallet that had been inaccessible for over a decade, with the assistance of Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude.
The individual, who goes by the username Cprkrn on X, shared his remarkable story on May 13. He recounted how Claude played a pivotal role in helping him regain access to five Bitcoin after years of unsuccessful attempts. The enthusiastic user expressed his astonishment with a post that read, “Holy f**king sht omg Claude just cracked this sht,” while also extending gratitude to both Anthropic and its CEO, Dario Amodei.
As of the time of his announcement, the value of Bitcoin hovered around $79,600, making the recovery of five BTC worth approximately $398,000.
According to details shared in the post, Cprkrn had locked the wallet during his college years, having purchased the cryptocurrency when it was valued at about $250 per coin. His access was lost after he changed the wallet password while in an altered state of mind. The password, shared in his post, humorously included the phrase “lol420fuckthePOLICE!*:)”.
Despite years of effort that involved trying an estimated trillions of password combinations, the breakthrough was achieved when the user decided to upload files from his old college computer into Claude. Rather than just attempting to guess the password, Claude helped sift through these old files and pinpointed a wallet.dat file that appeared to be from before the password change occurred. Additionally, Cprkrn had an old mnemonic phrase, which proved critical in unlocking the wallet once the correct file was identified.
In another post, Cprkrn remarked, “I tried like 7 trillion passwords lmfao. Found this old mnemonic a few weeks ago that ended up being the old password before I changed it. Thought I was screwed. Last ditch effort dumped my whole college computer into Claude. It found an OLD wallet file that the mnemonic…”
The increasing popularity of this story has sparked discussions within both the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence communities. Many were quick to clarify that Claude did not compromise Bitcoin’s security; instead, the AI assisted in organizing the user’s data, providing insights on what had gone wrong, and facilitating access recovery using legitimate wallet information.
This incident serves as a stark reminder for anyone who might possess forgotten old hard drives: those seemingly useless files could potentially hold significant value. Cprkrn even mentioned an intent to name his future child after Dario Amodei, a gesture that seems fitting given his newfound wealth of around $400,000.
