Crypto recovery

🔐 Recover lost Bitcoin wallet · encrypted wallet.dat

If you had Bitcoin Core in 2017 with an encrypted wallet.dat and forgot the passphrase, you're not alone. Each year approximately USD 140-180 million in BTC remains locked due to forgotten passwords. This guide explains honestly what can be recovered, what can't, and how to approach the problem with realistic expectations.

⚡ Complex case? Professional service /wallet-recovery/ · USD 35 diagnostic, success fee only if we recover.

Anatomy of an encrypted wallet.dat

Bitcoin Core wallet.dat uses AES-256-CBC with SHA-512 + 25,000 rounds (minimum, can be more). Key derivation is deliberately slow to defend against brute force.

Hashcat -m 11300 throughput on RTX 3090: ~14,000 attempts/sec. For comparison:

ZIP AES-256: ~700,000 a/sec (50× faster)
WPA2 wifi: ~860,000 a/sec (60× faster)
MD5 hashes: ~50 billion a/sec (3.5M× faster)

This means: blind brute force is PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Without known pattern, 8+ char random keys take millions of years.

The 4 recovery viability categories

Category 1 — Probable recovery (70-95% chance): you remember 80%+ of the passphrase, know approximate length, remember what type of chars you used. Plus you have contextual hints (your frequent words, family names, significant dates).

Category 2 — Possible recovery (20-50% chance): you remember some candidate phrases or words, know if it was English/Spanish, approximate length. Required: 30-90 days intensive cluster.

Category 3 — Improbable recovery (1-15% chance): you only remember "something simple" or "something complicated". No concrete hints. 6+ months cluster with low chance.

Category 4 — Impossible recovery (<1%): passphrase generated by password manager (Bitwarden, 1Password) or Diceware 6+ words. Worldwide cluster of 1000 GPUs doesn't recover in centuries.

BIP39 seed phrase with missing words

If you have your seed phrase on paper but missing some words (typically 1-4 of 12 or 24), your situation is better than pure wallet.dat:

Missing	Combinations	Cluster time
1 word	2,048	Minutes
2 words	~4M	Hours
3 words	~8.6 billion	Days
4 words	~17 trillion	Weeks

More than 5 missing words generally NOT viable. See brainwallet guide for more on seed types.

How to evaluate your case honestly

Before paying anything, do this checklist:

Do you have the wallet.dat file or just the public address?
If you have wallet.dat: do you know approximate balance? (>0.1 BTC justifies investigation)
Do you remember ANY passphrase pattern? (length, language, first letter, last char)
Do you have external hints? (paper, email, .txt file on old computer)
Wallet creation year? (defines expected complexity)

Answering these in order tells you if it's worth paying USD 35 diagnostic (we confirm if it's category 1-2-3-4) before any larger commitment.

What we do in the USD 2,000 AI Scan

The AI Scan is a deep analysis + intensive cluster attempts:

ML analysis (12-48h): an engineer analyzes your wallet.dat: entropy, format, Bitcoin Core version, KDF rounds used, hints provided
Custom strategy: defines wordlists, masks, rules. Example: if you say "it was English + year 2017", we generate 50M specific candidates
Intensive cluster (3-21 days): 5×RTX 3090 run 24/7 processing keyspace strategically
Detailed report: we send PDF with everything tried, technical conclusion, refined chances

After Scan: if we recover, success fee 30-40% of balance. If not, no extra charge.

Famous cases: people who recovered

Stefan Thomas (Ripple CTO): IronKey with 7,002 BTC. 2 attempts left before bricking. Public case 2021. NOT recovered yet. Worth ~$270M today.

James Howells (UK): threw HDD with 7,500 BTC in dump 2013. Still trying to excavate. NOT recovered. Worth ~$450M.

Private cases that DID recover: Spanish client with BIP39 + 2 missing words recovered 8.4 BTC in 2024 (cluster, 6 days). Argentine with wallet.dat + hints recovered 12 BTC in 2023 (cluster, 11 days). Brazilian with MetaMask vault recovered 58 ETH + tokens in 2025 (3.5 days).

Successful cases always had: intact file + useful hints + key NOT totally random.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need wallet.dat or just the address?

We need the wallet.dat file. Public address doesn't help — passphrase opens private key that ONLY exists inside encrypted wallet.dat.

What real chances if I only remember 'started with M'?

Low. Without more hints (length, other chars, language, charset), 1 initial letter reduces keyspace ~3% — insignificant. We need AT LEAST 30-50% of pattern for reasonable chances.

Is it safe to send my wallet.dat?

Yes. AES-256 encrypted storage in our cluster. NDA applies from first payment. Deleted 72h post-work. NEVER shared with third parties (not OpenAI nor Google nor AWS).

How much for service if I have large balance?

USD 2,000 AI Scan is flat (doesn't scale with balance). Success fee 30-40% of recovered balance. For 10 BTC ~ $700K, success fee ~$210-280K. For larger balances we negotiate fixed fee.

Do you recover seeds written on old paper?

Yes, our specialty. If you have paper with 12 or 24 words but some are illegible or you suspect errors, we can validate + auto-correct + recover BTC. Same pricing structure.

Complex case? We can help

5×RTX 3090 GPU cluster + ML engineer. USD 35 diagnostic, USD 2000 AI Scan, success fee 30-40% only if we recover.

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