Sent coins to wallet I lost the password to.

[NeXuS89]

Let me start off by saying that........I am an idiot.

I am usually incredibly careful when dealing with any amount of coins. Even if I know the password to my wallet, I send a few coins from it just to make sure I have the right password (it probably is a little overboard). This time, I sent 2.0 BTC to a wallet that I believed I had the password to; but sadly as you can tell by this post, I do not have the password. I remember saving it to a text file but then deleted it thinking I wouldn't need it again (for whatever reason)...

I know that it is a random 63 digit ASCII password generated from https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm. Entering one of these passwords in to their password haystacks (estimates how long it would take to brute force) gives a grim message (something like 1 trillion * 15 centuries to brute force).

I've tried some scripts I found on this site but they're outdated, they output some error about not finding an RPC server and it now uses bitcoin-cli instead of bitcoind. I replaced all instances of bitcoind with bitcoin-cli in the script but I think the syntax has changed cause I get another error.

How likely am I to get my coins back, give it to me straight. I know it's my fault, stupid stupid mistake; but 2.0 BTC is a paycheck to me.

Edit: Spelling, words.

[1715338787]

1715338787

[1715338787]

1715338787

[achow101]

With such a randomly generated password, you are likely to never get your coins back. As that site says, it will take an insane amount of time to bruteforce. There is nothing that can be done.

[-XXIII-]

When did you delete the file? There must be a way for it to be recovered?

[NeXuS89]

I've tried Recuva already, but my Windows system is on an SSD.

[DannyHamilton]

If you could actually remember for certain any of the characters at all that were in the password (even if you couldn't remember what order or where in the password) it would improve your odds of brute forcing.  The more you could remember about the password the more you'd improve the odds.  Remember enough and it might actually become possible.

Where there any capital letters?  Do you have a rough estimate of how many? Do you remember what ANY of them were?
Were there any lowercase letters?  Do you have a rough estimate of how many? Do you remember what ANY of them were?
Were there any numbers?  Do you have a rough estimate of how many? Do you remember what ANY of them were?
Were there any special characters? Do you have a rough estimate of how many? Do you remember what ANY of them were?
Do you remember what the first (or first few) characters were? Do you remember what the last (or last few) characters were?

Have you considered hypnosis, meditation, or other relaxation and focusing techniques to attempt to visualize what it looked like back when you used it?

As knightdk already stated: With such a randomly generated password, if you can't remember enough about it, you are likely to never get your coins back.

Honestly, you'd probably need to remember more than 80% of the password to have any chance at all with current technology.

[NeXuS89]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

[-XXIII-]

I've tried Recuva already, but my Windows system is on an SSD.

Is TRIM enable on the SSD? If not, it may still be possible to recover.

edit: to check, open up cmd and run:

> fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify

A return of 0 means TRIM is enabled

I've used testdisk with variable success in the past (not on SSD mind you), it's my only recommendation unfortunately..
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[DannyHamilton]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

Yep, you've got 3 options to gain access to those bitcoins...

• Somehow visualize more than 80% of the password from when you first saw it (hypnosis, meditation, etc)
• Recover the password from where you saved it.
• Find a backup of the password that you saved elsewhere.

If none of those work, then you can consider them permanently lost.

[ColderThanIce]

You could take a look at this service: http://www.walletrecoveryservices.com/

The guy who runs that website has helped out dozens of people recover their wallets from forgotten passwords. Obviously it's a massive long shot - you generated a random 63 character password with lower/upper/symbols/numbers and like DannyHamilton said, good luck brute-forcing something like that with current hardware and software.

Other than Wallet Recovery Services, I'd say your only option is to keep the wallet as-is, and wait a decade or so until brute-forcing passwords like that is possible, and then try to brute-force it.

[bitkilo]

Did you not write down the seed or backup when you first set up the wallet?
If you always keep a copy of your wallet seed in a safe location then forgetting your password is not a worry.

[DannyHamilton]

your only option is to keep the wallet as-is, and wait a decade or so until brute-forcing passwords like that is possible, and then try to brute-force it.

Nope.

His password is more than 410 bits of entropy.  A bitcoin private key is only 256 bits of entropy.  Each additional bit of entropy takes twice as long to brute force. That means that it would take 2.3 X 10⁴⁶ times longer to brute force his entire password than it would to just brute force a Bitcoin private key.  It will NEVER be possible to brute force a private key, therefore it will 2.3 X 10⁴⁶ times never be possible to brute force his entire password.

It might still be worth hanging on to the wallet though.  While it will never be possible to brute-force it, weaknesses in ECDSA, RIPEMD-160, and SHA-256 could be discovered in the future.  If enough weaknesses are discovered in the next few decades, then perhaps it might be possible to gain access to the bitcoins without brute-forcing anything.

[NeXuS89]

Maybe I'll be a millionaire in the future .

[DannyHamilton]

Did you not write down the seed or backup when you first set up the wallet?
If you always keep a copy of your wallet seed in a safe location

Nope.

OP stated that he used bitcoind.  bitcoind is a non-deterministic wallet. There is no seed.

[GoldTiger69]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

[deepceleron]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

It's already been stated as impossible with his password, so go scam elsewhere.

The only way this would ever be recovered is if the address was also used pre-encryption, and then some old wallet data with the keys were found in free space by scanning the entire hard drive raw.

Edit: additionally, if TRIM was supported by the SSD and the hard drive controller, the deleted file blocks would have been cleaned by the drive.

[NeXuS89]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

I think I can extract the password hash from the wallet.dat, I've seen it in another thread; I would def give you .04 BTC.

[GoldTiger69]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

I think I can extract the password hash from the wallet.dat, I've seen it in another thread; I would def give you .04 BTC.

Good luck then, man

I'm asking 0.4 BTC because that's the 20% of the wallet, and I would not try it for less, sorry. And tbh, it's not easy to get that hash, but I wish you the best luck, man.

[GoldTiger69]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

It's already been stated as impossible with his password, so go scam elsewhere.

The only way this would ever be recovered is if the address was also used pre-encryption, and then some old wallet data with the keys were found in free space by scanning the entire hard drive raw.

Edit: additionally, if TRIM was supported by the SSD and the hard drive controller, the deleted file blocks would have been cleaned by the drive.

Thanks, I do respect you too. Why would I be a scammer for offering what others do? which is to try to recover his password.

Anyway, thanks for being such a nice guy. And yes, I love you too.

[NeXuS89]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

I think I can extract the password hash from the wallet.dat, I've seen it in another thread; I would def give you .04 BTC.

Good luck then, man

I'm asking 0.4 BTC because that's the 20% of the wallet, and I would not try it for less, sorry. And tbh, it's not easy to get that hash, but I wish you the best luck, man.

Oooppps sorry I meant I'd definitely give you .4 bitcoin, added a zero on accident.

[GoldTiger69]

It was a password generated by a random password...generator. It generated a unique 63 ASCII character password, which would look something like this (I just generated this using the same generator. I listed the site above): h,|F;@z=fN+Y&[O5mzI:kJ^ml6R0Z/p5=NF~R7{AV!v5~APbd_KaUe"#_LBHOGc

If you are willing to pay me 0.4 BTC I will try to recover the coins on your wallet.dat file.
You pay only if I recover your coins. (It may take some weeks, if possible, and I'll need the wallet.dat file)

I can't promise I will get them, but I'll do my best.

I think I can extract the password hash from the wallet.dat, I've seen it in another thread; I would def give you .04 BTC.

Good luck then, man

I'm asking 0.4 BTC because that's the 20% of the wallet, and I would not try it for less, sorry. And tbh, it's not easy to get that hash, but I wish you the best luck, man.

Oooppps sorry I meant I'd definitely give you .4 bitcoin, added a zero on accident.

Excelent then! I'll PM you now. (Thanks in advance for your trust)