Lifesavings stuck in Bitcoin Core, I forgot password[Offering 0.042 BTC Tip]

[SpaceMarine770]

I was severely robbed back in August. I was running a successful business that was helping lots of people, and I got raided by thieves who robbed my house blind of most of it's cash. Slightly before that, perhaps a week or 2 earlier, I was getting hacked by thieves so I quickly transferred all of my Bitcoins off of Blockchain and onto Bitcoin Core (Version 25).

I was in such a panic that I forgot the password as soon as I set it. After the robberies took most of my cash out of my house, this Bitcoin is most of my lifesavings, and I just need to remember the password and I'll be able to provide properly for my family, for my wife and 11 children.

I've been running BTCRecover and have crunched through millions of passwords already, based on what I remember of the password. I tried installing Hashcat, but have been unsuccessful so far.

I know I am an inefficient amateur, and I need help from the the real cryptographers here who know how to do brute force cracks. With the password memories/hints I have, and the knowledge of experts on Bitcointalk, I'm sure it'll work out.

I also have the wallet.dat, and the original computer that the Bitcoin Core is running on, and I definitely need help figuring out all the vectors of extracting/recovering my private keys. Maybe there's other ways besides just brute forcing the password. (Maybe there's keyloggers installed on the mac and I can recover my keystrokes from when this happened?) -- (Maybe the wallet.dat isn't as impenetrable as said, and it is possible to get private keys?)

I am pissed off that Bitcoin Core didn't have straightforward access to displaying the private key so I can physically write it down. So I couldn't do things correctly. It's absolutely ridiculous. I still can't figure out how to dump private keys from the console whether it's unlocked or not. This serious flaw in the newer Bitcoin Cores led to my huge loss, to be honest. I wasn't prepared for Bitcoin Core to have lost this functionality right when I needed it the most.

Please help. I trust in God that I'll get this money back so I can properly provide for my wife and 11 children and the ever-increasing amount of grandchildren. This is a life and death difference for my family if I can just access my Bitcoins. Please help. God bless you.

[dzungmobile]

I was severely robbed back in August. I was running a successful business that was helping lots of people, and I got raided by thieves who robbed my house blind of most of it's cash. Slightly before that, perhaps a week or 2 earlier, I was getting hacked by thieves so I quickly transferred all of my Bitcoins off of Blockchain and onto Bitcoin Core (Version 25).

I was in such a panic that I forgot the password as soon as I set it. After the robberies took most of my cash out of my house, this Bitcoin is most of my lifesavings, and I just need to remember the password and I'll be able to provide properly for my family, for my wife and 11 children.

It's one of strangest stories I have ever known.

You got robbed, in your house, and you were free enough to create your wallet with Bitcoin Core and moved your bitcoin from Blockchain.com wallet (?) to Bitcoin Core wallet (?)

Later, the criminals left your house after taking all your cash, and this part of story raises a big question, that what did they do with you when they were in your house?

It's very possible a fiction, not actual story.

[SpaceMarine770]

I was severely robbed back in August. I was running a successful business that was helping lots of people, and I got raided by thieves who robbed my house blind of most of it's cash. Slightly before that, perhaps a week or 2 earlier, I was getting hacked by thieves so I quickly transferred all of my Bitcoins off of Blockchain and onto Bitcoin Core (Version 25).

I was in such a panic that I forgot the password as soon as I set it. After the robberies took most of my cash out of my house, this Bitcoin is most of my lifesavings, and I just need to remember the password and I'll be able to provide properly for my family, for my wife and 11 children.

It's one of strangest stories I have ever known.

You got robbed, in your house, and you were free enough to create your wallet with Bitcoin Core and moved your bitcoin from Blockchain.com wallet (?) to Bitcoin Core wallet (?)

Later, the criminals left your house after taking all your cash, and this part of story raises a big question, that what did they do with you when they were in your house?

It's very possible a fiction, not actual story.

You completely misquoted and misanalyzed my story.

I forgive you.

I was getting hacked on my iPhone and I transferred my Bitcoins to Bitcoin Core, 1-2 weeks before my house and most of my cash was invaded and emptied out by evil forces. They even abducted me, it was completely insane.

I was creating and encrypting my wallet in my house alone.

They are trying to destroy my family. I am Jewish and we are in a Holocaust. The Nazis are making their final desperate attempt to kill and rob all the Jews

[BenCodie]

Your only hope is BTCRecover. If you are able to remember at least some of the password (depending on how strong the entire password is) then you should be able to recover it. There isn't much else you can do and I highly recommend that you do not trust anyone with the wallet.dat. There aren't many white knights left, and you run the risk of recovering the swiftly losing your BTC if you trust someone else with it.

I'm no pro when it comes to recovery but as far as I've read, what you're already trying is the best hope that you have.

If you are no longer in danger, try and take some time off and reset your mind as you've just gone through a very traumatic experience. When you are a little clearer in the mind, maybe the password (or at least a bigger part of it) will come to you.

They are trying to destroy my family. I am Jewish and we are in a Holocaust. The Nazis are making their final desperate attempt to kill and rob all the Jews

Seems more likely that you were targeted for a specific reason that's a bit more personal, in comparison to it being a completely random attack because you are Jewish and we are (apparently) in a holocaust. Focus more so on recovering your coins than making this political or religiously motivated (if you're serious to begin with) as no one cares about the additional meta and at the end of the day, you are only going to narrow your audience of who may help with statements like these.

[jstyler]

i'm really sorry to hear about your situation, it's a nightmare to deal with. bitcoin core's lack of straightforward private key access is indeed a frustrating flaw. have you considered reaching out to some of the bitcoin core devs or security experts for guidance on wallet.dat and private key recovery? they might be able to provide some valuable insights or point you in the right direction.

[SpaceMarine]

Your only hope is BTCRecover. If you are able to remember at least some of the password (depending on how strong the entire password is) then you should be able to recover it. There isn't much else you can do and I highly recommend that you do not trust anyone with the wallet.dat. There aren't many white knights left, and you run the risk of recovering the swiftly losing your BTC if you trust someone else with it.

I'm no pro when it comes to recovery but as far as I've read, what you're already trying is the best hope that you have.

If you are no longer in danger, try and take some time off and reset your mind as you've just gone through a very traumatic experience. When you are a little clearer in the mind, maybe the password (or at least a bigger part of it) will come to you.

They are trying to destroy my family. I am Jewish and we are in a Holocaust. The Nazis are making their final desperate attempt to kill and rob all the Jews

Seems more likely that you were targeted for a specific reason that's a bit more personal, in comparison to it being a completely random attack because you are Jewish and we are (apparently) in a holocaust. Focus more so on recovering your coins than making this political or religiously motivated (if you're serious to begin with) as no one cares about the additional meta and at the end of the day, you are only going to narrow your audience of who may help with statements like these.

What's the most powerful way to use BTCRecover? I've been gaining experience for a month, but I know I am not doing this efficiently. Tips would be greatly appreciated.

When I was abducted they of course did a chemical lobotomy on me, I think that's the main issue contributing to this problem. I was brainwashed to forget what business even is.

P.S. To be clear, I remember a whole bunch of words, numbers, and sequences of special characters that are likely part of the password. My memories are scrambled like an egg though.

God bless you.

[SpaceMarine]

i'm really sorry to hear about your situation, it's a nightmare to deal with. bitcoin core's lack of straightforward private key access is indeed a frustrating flaw. have you considered reaching out to some of the bitcoin core devs or security experts for guidance on wallet.dat and private key recovery? they might be able to provide some valuable insights or point you in the right direction.

Which bitcoin devs / security experts should I reach out to? Thank you for the good idea

[singlethread1]

BTCRecover is definitely your best bet here. If I were you, I would combine it with a password generating tool such as cracken (https://github.com/shmuelamar/cracken) to generate a big list of possible passwords.

For example:
cracken --wordlist firstnames.txt --wordlist lastnames.lst --charset 'ABCDEFabcdefg' '?w1?w2?1?d?d?d'

this command would create a list of all possible combinations of:

Wordlist1 + Wordlist2 + One of these characters: ABCDEFabcdefg + A digit from 0-9 + A digit from 0-9 + A digit from 0-9

[JollyGood]

The number of nonsensical threads being created never stop surprising me. However, the stories being attached to them are getting more ridiculous. For those that believe the OP (under all the accounts he is using to post in this thread), they can advise him on how to recover his password but for those that do not buy the story, we can sit back and watch the drama until we get bored.

[SpaceMarine770]

I'm getting much more serious with my attempts to recover the password, spending hour after hour mapping all possible elements and all possible combinations. I found that writing down all the possible elements on paper is sparking my memory to remember every possible word/number/character that I would ever use in a password.

I found that I wasn't feeding the special characters correctly into BTCRecover, the $ has to be written in the token file as %S, and ^ needs to be %^. One of my primary theories from my memory is that the password ends with something like !@#$%^&* --- basically all the special characters in a row on the keyboard, and since I wasn't doing the code right, it gives me hope that I'll find it now that the program is reading special characters correctly.

Perhaps I already almost cracked the password, but the $ and the ^ in the password weren't handled by BTCrecover. I think this is what's happening.

I'm going to look into running with GPU to see if that increases speed. If my speed was faster by some orders of magnitude, it would be much more feasible. Right now it's testing approximately 3,000 password combos every minute. I'm pretty sure that number can be brought up to the tens of thousands per minute once I optimize efficiency.

BTCRecover is definitely your best bet here. If I were you, I would combine it with a password generating tool such as cracken (https://github.com/shmuelamar/cracken) to generate a big list of possible passwords.

For example:
cracken --wordlist firstnames.txt --wordlist lastnames.lst --charset 'ABCDEFabcdefg' '?w1?w2?1?d?d?d'

this command would create a list of all possible combinations of:

Wordlist1 + Wordlist2 + One of these characters: ABCDEFabcdefg + A digit from 0-9 + A digit from 0-9 + A digit from 0-9

Thank you for the advice. BTCRecover generates possible combinations too. Does using cracken 1st and then feeding in the password list make the process significantly faster?

Please if anyone else has good advice or knows which experts I can talk to, let me know in this thread. This is a pivotal moment in my life, and my family will be much more successful and secure if I can just get this password.

All things considered, I know that this is all from God and that this whole scenario is all for the best. That being said, it's definitely the right time to fix this huge problem, and I believe that once I get some more expert advice or assistance, that this will be solved. The upsides are that the Bitcoins are in a wallet on my computer nice and safe, and that I had to type the password twice to encrypt the wallet, so it has to be a password that I personally typed. And I have a whole list of possible password elements, it's just a matter of getting the right sequence.

Worst case scenario, I typo'd twice in a row when I saved the password. But even then, I would just use the typo features on BTCRecover, once I can narrow down the possibilities enough, or if I can get the program to be fast enough.

[ABCbits]

i'm really sorry to hear about your situation, it's a nightmare to deal with. bitcoin core's lack of straightforward private key access is indeed a frustrating flaw. have you considered reaching out to some of the bitcoin core devs or security experts for guidance on wallet.dat and private key recovery? they might be able to provide some valuable insights or point you in the right direction.

Please don't suggest to contact one of Bitcoin Core developer/contributor, they're not tech support. It's been stated many times, here are few examples
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/9153#issuecomment-260216788
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/31832#issuecomment-2647314964

I'm going to look into running with GPU to see if that increases speed. If my speed was faster by some orders of magnitude, it would be much more feasible. Right now it's testing approximately 3,000 password combos every minute. I'm pretty sure that number can be brought up to the tens of thousands per minute once I optimize efficiency.

Even with one mid-end GPU, BTCRecover can try hundred thousand combo per minute. Looking at https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/GPU_Acceleration/, single Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti can perform 6750 password/second or 405 thousand per minute.

[SpaceMarine]

i'm really sorry to hear about your situation, it's a nightmare to deal with. bitcoin core's lack of straightforward private key access is indeed a frustrating flaw. have you considered reaching out to some of the bitcoin core devs or security experts for guidance on wallet.dat and private key recovery? they might be able to provide some valuable insights or point you in the right direction.

Please don't suggest to contact one of Bitcoin Core developer/contributor, they're not tech support. It's been stated many times, here are few examples
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/9153#issuecomment-260216788
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/31832#issuecomment-2647314964

I'm going to look into running with GPU to see if that increases speed. If my speed was faster by some orders of magnitude, it would be much more feasible. Right now it's testing approximately 3,000 password combos every minute. I'm pretty sure that number can be brought up to the tens of thousands per minute once I optimize efficiency.

Even with one mid-end GPU, BTCRecover can try hundred thousand combo per minute. Looking at https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/GPU_Acceleration/, single Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti can perform 6750 password/second or 405 thousand per minute.

I've been working on setting up the GPU acceleration all night and finally got it working. Now I'm at approximately 10,000 passwords per minute which is already alot better.

It says that if i optimize the --global-ws and --local-ws parameters that it's possible to get a 10X improvement, so God willing I can get it upwards of 100,000 passwords a minute.

Also, this can run multiple servers / computers / GPUs in parallel, so I'm gonna start working on that. Then I can scale up much more.

I really wanna get it strong in case I have to start running all the typo parameters. I'm truly baffled it hasn't cracked it yet, so it might be a typo situation

[bulleteyedk]

Please if anyone else has good advice or knows which experts I can talk to, let me know in this thread. This is a pivotal moment in my life, and my family will be much more successful and secure if I can just get this password.

check this YT channel, this dude has a lot of videos using btcrecover - you can comment on his most recent video or read his information, there should be information about how to get in contact with him, if you need help getting onwards.

https://www.youtube.com/@CryptoGuide

EDIT: my previous post was deleted by a moderater, im not sure why, so i've withheld some information in this post

[krishnaverma]

How much is at the stake?

Really sorry for your loss. I think that if your story is real and you can submit proof, there could be some possibility for you to even raise these funds someway with help from others.

[SpaceMarine770]

How much is at the stake?

Really sorry for your loss. I think that if your story is real and you can submit proof, there could be some possibility for you to even raise these funds someway with help from others.

It's most of my lifesavings, 1.55 Bitcoins. I planned my family's financial future around this Bitcoin. I spent years slowly stacking up satoshis from good honest work, and it's devastating if I would truly lose the Bitcoins.

I have the partial mkey hash that can be used to run BTCRecover without a wallet.dat .... and I have a huge array of possible password elements.

Assuming it is safe to offer this data on the forum, since it can't be accessed without the wallet.dat (right? correct me if i'm wrong) -- I'm wondering if offering an open bounty to the community would be a good way to fix this huge crisis.

I'm sure a BTCrecover expert can easily solve this password .... and I will give a huge tip to whoever solves it, and whoever helps gets the good deed of massively helping my entire family.

However, is the mkey and the password enough to generate private keys somehow? If it is, then this would be a really stupid idea.

[apogio]

Most of the time (90% +), when someone posts something like this, they have paid to buy hacked wallets and they realise that the password they were given was wrong. In other words, they were scammed.

I hope that's not the case with you and, of course, you don't have to answer me. But, if it was the case, I am terribly sorry but there is no chance of getting coins from there.

If the wallet is indeed yours, then perhaps you have a slim chance of remembering (or brute-forcing) the password.

[SpaceMarine770]

Most of the time (90% +), when someone posts something like this, they have paid to buy hacked wallets and they realise that the password they were given was wrong. In other words, they were scammed.

I hope that's not the case with you and, of course, you don't have to answer me. But, if it was the case, I am terribly sorry but there is no chance of getting coins from there.

If the wallet is indeed yours, then perhaps you have a slim chance of remembering (or brute-forcing) the password.

I follow all the laws of Hashem's Torah. I wouldn't steal a dollar of someone else's Bitcoin.

I can agree with the sentiment though, I feel like thievery has gone absolutely insane in this world and thieves are attacking from all angles. That's alot of the reason I ended up in this situation

[bulleteyedk]

I'm sure a BTCrecover expert can easily solve this password

Look at my previous post, try and hook up with that dude that runs that YT channel, i would consider him being an expert within using BTCrecover and recovering funds in general.

Best of luck! - i really hope you get this resolved

[batang_bitcoin]

I'm wondering if offering an open bounty to the community would be a good way to fix this huge crisis.

That's possible but only allow reputable members to join the bounty. Because if it's not and someone is able to crack that(unlikely in your situation) and they don't have reputation in here, they'll easily forgeta about the bounty and leave you clueless and hopeless. Anyway, it seems that there is a direction being told you to and you're trying to do it, I can't do anything with that and just wishing you luck for your 11 children if this is a real recovery journey. 1.55 BTCs is a lot of money already in current price we have.

[SpaceMarine770]

I'm wondering if offering an open bounty to the community would be a good way to fix this huge crisis.

That's possible but only allow reputable members to join the bounty. Because if it's not and someone is able to crack that(unlikely in your situation) and they don't have reputation in here, they'll easily forgeta about the bounty and leave you clueless and hopeless. Anyway, it seems that there is a direction being told you to and you're trying to do it, I can't do anything with that and just wishing you luck for your 11 children if this is a real recovery journey. 1.55 BTCs is a lot of money already in current price we have.

God bless you, yes I am absolutely driven to get this password. I'm enjoying how this project is getting me back into Bitcoin programming actually. Crypto is truly amazing once you start to interact with the actual technology. It's not just a balance to look at. It's a living creation.

BTW, supposedly with the encrypted BTCrecover Hash, there's no way for someone to steal the Bitcoins even if they get the password, which is why I was thinking of just opening this up to the community.

However, I have a feeling there might be a way to generate the private key itself or a wallet.dat for one of the Bitcoin Wallet programs with the information that can be gleaned from the partial master key and the password, plus additional brute forcing techniques. I can imagine someone cracking the password from the partial mkey, and then pointing all their hashing power to another program that brute forces a wallet file or private key. Or maybe they can target the client's computer and just hack out the wallet.dat. That's alot easier than cracking Bitcoin Core encryption. So yeah, that concerns me too.

I think it might be getting to the point that Bitcoin is becoming insecure. With BTCrecover you can scale up to infinite hashing power using parallel servers. And then if you get a pool of people all doing that, plus technology is better than ever, I'm pretty sure it can go all the way and crack open wallets where the attacker doesn't know any of the password. Alot of Bitcoin wallets are probably vulnerable to brute force at this point, and I can see it getting to the point that Bitcoin is absolutely compromised, if we're not already there.


I am offering a 0.042 Bitcoin tip to anyone who wants to crack the password. Let me know. I could eventually figure this out myself, but I really am spending all day on this, just absolutely fixated on saving my family, and I need this to be over.

You can simply give me the exact information about which code / program / technique I should use, and if it solves this issue, I'll send you the tip.

Alternatively, I can give you the mkey / hash key thing, and a ton of info on the possible password structure, and I bet some people here can get the password within an hour with the technology they have. This is a safe way to do this, and there won't be any disasters.

Let me know, I'll give the info if anyone is actually serious. Fastest person to crack it gets $3600+ of Bitcoin, as soon as I get access back to them I'll send without any delay.

I am running 1 million password combos per hour currently. I don't know how this particular password is so lost. It's crazy and surreal and I'm desperately waiting for the happy ending.