Man Regains Access to $3M Bitcoin After 11-Year Lockout

After years of attempting to unlock the bitcoin wallet, the owner reached out to Grand, who has a reputation for helping people recover lost digital assets.

America – A Bitcoin wallet containing $3 million was finally unlocked after its owner, who had forgotten the password 11 years ago, enlisted the help of cybersecurity expert Joe Grand, also known online as ‘Kingpin.’

The anonymous owner, who initially secured his wallet with a password generated by RoboForm, became concerned about the safety of his Bitcoin and decided to protect it with an encrypted password file. Unfortunately, he misplaced the password, leaving him unable to access his Bitcoin for over a decade. When he initially lost access, the wallet contained 43.6 BTC, then worth between $3,000 and $4,000. However, with Bitcoin’s astronomical rise, the wallet’s value now stands at around $3 million.

After years of attempting to unlock the wallet, the owner reached out to Grand, who has a reputation for helping people recover lost digital assets. Grand had previously assisted another cryptocurrency owner in reclaiming over $2 million in 2022. Though Grand declined numerous similar requests over the years, he decided to take on this challenge, turning to a specialized technique to retrieve the lost funds.

In a YouTube video detailing the process, Grand explained the approach he used, noting that RoboForm’s password generation system in the past may not have created genuinely unique, random passwords. By carefully recreating the conditions from 2013, including resetting the computer’s time to match when the password was first generated, Grand and his colleague Bruno were able to generate millions of potential password combinations. Eventually, they succeeded in recreating the original password, unlocking the wallet after years of uncertainty.

Reflecting on the process, Grand said, “We ultimately got lucky that our parameters and time range were right. If either of those were wrong, we would have continued to take guesses and shots in the dark.”