Bitcoin Owner Claims Claude AI Cracked Lost Wallet Password, Netting $400K in BTC

An X-thread claiming that Anthropic’s Claude AI helped recover a long-lost Bitcoin wallet worth about $400,000 went viral on Wednesday, attracting millions of views.

The messages came from a pseudonymous

“Holy shit OMG Claude just cracked this shit,” Cprkrn wrotewith Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei.

Cprkrn also shared a message from August 2023suggesting the wallet had been ‘locked’ since 2015. Blockchain data indeed shows that the Bitcoin wallet starting with “14VJyS” has not moved any money since 2015 – to this day.

The thread generated more than 6 million views as users speculated about whether large language models could help with recovery tasks involving encrypted files and forgotten passwords.

While the screenshots shared on

According to reports, Cprkrn attempted to recover the wallet using tools such as btcrecover and Hashcat, software commonly used to test password combinations against encrypted data, but without success.

Cprkrn said he finally uploaded files from an old college computer to Claude, which he said helped identify a file related to a mnemonic in a notebook.

“An OLD wallet file was found that the pneumonia successfully decrypted,” they wrote. “Locked out for over eleven years because I got stoned and changed the password.”

“In the end this was the most obvious opening ever lol,” Cprkrn added.

However, wallet recovery experts debate how much of the process can reasonably be attributed to Claude himself, versus the wallet file, mnemonic, and historical data required to reconstruct the password the user already possessed.

“Claude’s likely role was to sift through large amounts of historical data and identify clues related to older wallet credentials or password formats,” one expert said. Declutter. “This is less a matter of password cracking and more of forensic sorting.”

The claims come as interest in Claude’s ability to perform complex analyzes has increased following the launch of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model last month, which the company says can identify software vulnerabilities and autonomously complete advanced security tasks.

The claims also sparked skepticism on Reddit, where some users claimed the viral posts overstated Claude’s role in the recovery process.

“Claude has done nothing but search his files,” said one user posted. “The headline is vague enough to make the gullible among us think Claude has done something groundbreaking.”

“And now you understand the average end user’s love for AI,” says another said. “It’s not revolutionary; it just reinforces their pre-existing laziness.”

Cprkrn did not respond to a request for comment from Declutter.