As a researcher, I recently came across a fascinating report from a Bitcoin user on X (formerly Twitter), going by the handle cprkrn. They claimed to have successfully recovered 5 Bitcoin from a wallet that had been inaccessible for over eleven years. The breakthrough came after they uploaded files from an old college computer to Anthropic’s Claude AI, which apparently helped them regain access.
The chatbot reportedly located a hidden wallet file, fixed errors in the btcrecover program (an open-source tool), unlocked the encryption keys, and then converted them into a standard wallet format. Before trying AI, the user had spent around $250 on unsuccessful attempts with other services.
How Claude Cracked the Wallet
Okay, so I was trying to recover some old files, and I decided to upload everything from a really old college laptop to Claude, just as a last resort. Surprisingly, the chatbot actually found an encrypted wallet file buried in all that data! Then, it suggested using btcrecover – it’s a popular, free tool for this kind of thing – to try and get the wallet back.
Screenshots shared on X demonstrate the model successfully figured out how the password system worked. It discovered that the ‘btcrecover’ tool combines a special ‘sharedKey’ with the user’s password to unlock encrypted data. After correcting a minor issue, the private keys were successfully decrypted on the first attempt.
Getting his account back depended on a password hint he remembered from a few weeks ago. He’d created the original password back in college and updated it soon after, adding to the growing number of lost cryptocurrency accounts that have been inaccessible for years.
Someone shared that they used the Claude AI to recover an old digital wallet file from their college computer. They were able to unlock it using a previously remembered password, after Claude located the file.
With the pioneer crypto now trading for $79,622, the recovery is now worth almost $400,000.
Why the Case Is Drawing Attention
The post quickly gained over a million views. Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, described the response as “incredible.” Crypto journalist Laura Shin and Jesse Pollak, the creator of Base, shared similar reactions of surprise and excitement.
insane
— jesse.base.eth (@jessepollak) May 13, 2026
According to experts, the successful recovery demonstrates that AI is now capable of performing complex tasks in cybersecurity and software debugging.
This is unbelievable! Someone had 5 Bitcoin stuck in a wallet for nine years. As a last resort, they fed their old computer to the AI Claude. Amazingly, Claude found the wallet file, figured out how to bypass the password protection in a recovery tool, unlocked the keys, converted them to a usable format, and recovered the Bitcoin! We’re just speechless…
— Abbas Khan ⟠ (@KhanAbbas201) May 13, 2026
Meanwhile, wider attention has followed Anthropic as Claude’s capabilities expand.
This recent discovery is part of a larger trend of Bitcoin from old, inactive wallets suddenly becoming active. According to data from Glassnode, about one-third of all Bitcoins haven’t been moved in years.
If this method works for other lost wallets will depend on whether people saved files from previous years. A user named cprkrn suggests backing up everything from old computers and notebooks before discarding them, just in case.
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2026-05-13 22:26