A Bitcoin holder has gone viral after recovering nearly $400,000 worth of BTC from a wallet locked for more than 11 years with help from Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude.
The user said he originally bought 5 Bitcoin during college when BTC traded around $250 per coin, but later lost access after changing the password while high.
After years of failed recovery attempts and testing countless password combinations, the breakthrough reportedly came when he uploaded files from his old college computer into Claude.
Rather than hacking Bitcoin itself, the AI helped identify an older wallet file that existed before the password change, allowing the user to regain access using valid backup data and an old recovery phrase.
The story quickly spread across crypto and AI communities, with many pointing out that the recovery highlighted AI’s ability to organize, analyze, and uncover forgotten digital information rather than break encryption.
With Bitcoin now trading near $80,000, the recovered wallet is worth almost $400,000 today.