AI Unlocks Decade-Old Bitcoin Fortune

A pseudonymous user on X has successfully recovered 5 Bitcoin, valued at nearly $400,000 as of Wednesday, which had been inaccessible for more than a decade. The cryptocurrency was initially purchased in 2015 for approximately $250 per coin. The user lost access after forgetting a complex password set on his Blockchain.com wallet.

After years of unsuccessful attempts, including brute-forcing trillions of password combinations, the user uploaded files from an old college laptop to Anthropic's Claude AI. Over eight weeks, the AI identified an encrypted wallet backup from December 2019.

This backup, when decrypted with a rediscovered mnemonic phrase, revealed the private keys. Public blockchain records confirm the 5 Bitcoin were transferred out of the dormant wallet on Wednesday. The AI's role was matching existing user information, not breaking Bitcoin's encryption, facilitating the recovery of funds stored on a cluttered hard drive.

Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is increasingly seen as a tool in hacking blockchain systems. In April, a record 29 hacks totaled $651 million, with North Korean-linked groups accounting for a significant portion of crypto value stolen. Responses to these hacks highlight the centralized controls within decentralized systems, as seen with frozen assets by Arbitrum's Security Council and Tether.