Bitcoin trader recovers $400,000 using Claude AI after getting 'stoned' and losing wallet password 11 years ago — bot tried 3.5 trillion passwords before decrypting an old wallet backup

A Bitcoin holder who forgot their wallet password after changing it while intoxicated 11 years ago successfully recovered 5 BTC (worth ~$400,000) using Claude AI. After years of failed brute-force attempts with btcrecover, the user dumped their old college computer files into Claude. The AI found a hidden December 2019 backup wallet file and identified a bug in how passwords were being combined during recovery attempts. With the bug fixed and the older backup file, btcrecover successfully tried 3.5 trillion passwords and decrypted the private keys, allowing the user to reclaim their Bitcoin.