If you got in this situationn! What will you?

[demonica]

Regardless of how you acquire the seedphrase or access to the wallet, the fact that it's not yours, then it's not yours. Setting the law aside, we know whether it's right or wrong so it depends on one's conscience. But given what op said, let's say you luckily guessed the key, the first question would be, why are you trying to access other's wallet? What's the reason behind it? That part alone means you already have a bad intention. On the other hand, let's say that you just accidentally found a paper or anything with its seedphrase written on it... Let's not lie, we'll all be tempted by it especially that amount can already change your life in an instant. So I'd probably monitor it for some time to  see if it's really a dormant one before doing anything.

[Clearnet]

Technically this is a huge debate Im surely wanted to know some answers. Whats your thought on this?

Unless the address is connected with Silk Road or any other shady thing, for that reason, the FBI is looking for that address particularly . Otherwise, if someone had filed a missing persons report with enough evidence, you could have got into some legal procedure. Other than this, there is no way that you are going to have any problems.

Also, please stop dreaming this stuff and be practical, use your brain for something useful .

[FirmWars]

As I have not heard before that someone guess the seed phrase of a founded Bitcoin address, I had to ask AI if such has happened before and based on the below response, one of the conditions that can make one guess the seed to a funded wallet is when they already have some of the phrase and had to brute force the remaining phrase. When you make such discovery, you don't have to touch the Bitcoin because it's not yours, but can you even resist the temptation of not touching the Bitcoin?  I read a story about a company that was hacked and they lost a significant amount of money to the hacker but the hacker later returned the money, he said his intention was not to steal it but just to let the company know that their security is weak, can you be that kind of person if you discovered such Bitcoin?

Has someone ever guessed a funded Bitcoin seed phrase?
Yes, but not by randomly guessing a properly generated BIP39 seed phrase. Successful cases have generally involved weak randomness, human-created phrases, leaked information, or vulnerable wallet generation.

[Ronsbit]

All my time as a crypto enthusiasts, I have never heard anywhere or anybody say they did some guess work and were able to access a wallet with funds in them.

There's no such a thing like a guess work in this situation. No one get's access to a private key or seed phrase by guessing.

I have read a post in the legal board where someone proposed anyone can claim ownership of bitcoin that has stayed for decade without activities. He cited one controversial situation where abandoned property without owner eventually gets a new owner.

This example is better because it said one already guessed the key.

To me, guessing the key of such fund and using it; is like someone erroneously sending coins to your address and you refuse to return it.

Categorically, that could be termed theft because you are holding and refused to return what isn't yours. You can not give account of it and event that backs up your ownership claim of such asset's, you are likened to a criminal who forcefully takes what does not belong to them.

Guess work in Crypto to access ones fund is never possible and can never happen except by brute force, hack or scam.

[unisushicake]

Guess work in Crypto to access ones fund is never possible and can never happen except by brute force, hack or scam.

Hacks and scams are very possible and most common ways to steal money of careless people.

Brute force is harder to succeed because if people do right things for security and privacy, it's impossible to brute force passwords of accounts or wallet file password successfully.

Are your passwords in the green?

[Outhue]

Regardless of how you acquire the seedphrase or access to the wallet, the fact that it's not yours, then it's not yours. Setting the law aside, we know whether it's right or wrong so it depends on one's conscience. But given what op said, let's say you luckily guessed the key, the first question would be, why are you trying to access other's wallet? What's the reason behind it? That part alone means you already have a bad intention. On the other hand, let's say that you just accidentally found a paper or anything with its seedphrase written on it... Let's not lie, we'll all be tempted by it especially that amount can already change your life in an instant. So I'd probably monitor it for some time to  see if it's really a dormant one before doing anything.

You will monitor it for sometime before doing what exactly? I believe that's the question that you are been asked, for anyone who guessed someone's recovery seed they are already planning to steal from the wallet if they find anything inside it, if I ever mistakenly come across such big balance I am moving some money from the wallet.

If you have a billion dollars and you lost a thousand dollars you won't feel anything, this is what I am going to do not because I need that money but to send a message across, that the wallet isn't safe anymore, Bitcoin wallet has no messaging app where you can PM someone via decentralised network to warn them, the only way they will know that something is going on is you sending some money from the wallet.

[Ronsbit]

Guess work in Crypto to access ones fund is never possible and can never happen except by brute force, hack or scam.

Hacks and scams are very possible and most common ways to steal money of careless people.

Brute force is harder to succeed because if people do right things for security and privacy, it's impossible to brute force passwords of accounts or wallet file password successfully.

Are your passwords in the green?

Hacks and scams are easy when the perpetrators have little information about their targets and they can use it to do whatever they want to because it grants them access to their target or victims wallet. These are some through phishing links and mails sent out to their targets.

Brute force requires more technical skills but I think it also requires some sensitive information about a wallet like public keys and this type of actions are mostly down to help recover wallet's on behalf of owners who lost access to their keys.

[oll]

It seems to me that this question has a lot of aspects, and the very first one that comes to mind is that such coins need to be checked for AML compliance.
And if we approach the issue realistically, no one will ever be able to guess another person’s Bitcoin crypto wallet key, because Satoshi thought this idea through perfectly, and it’s absolutely impossible from a mathematical standpoint. Legally, of course, this person would also be in the wrong, because they didn’t earn those bitcoins, which means they shouldn’t be the one to manage them - even if the owner of that wallet has long since passed away.

[Odusko]

Curiosity make me ask, this question, because how can someone just get the seed phrase of a wallet that contains $1 billion worth of BTC? The thing is an automatic red flag, and by spending the money in that wallet, you are definitely agreeing to whatever legal responsibility is attached to that wallet and its deposit address. Such an amount of money can't just sit in a wallet waiting for someone to randomly claim it. Cryptocurrency is quite expensive now, and that amount can only come in from bad actions like hacks or scams on a high level.

[Felicity_Tide]

Let's not lie, we'll all be tempted by it especially that amount can already change your life in an instant. So I'd probably monitor it for some time to  see if it's really a dormant one before doing anything.

Feeling tempted by something that is likely to get you arrested is wild. In fact, the process of even guessing a random seed phrase with such an amount, automatically puts a person one step closer to ending up in prison. A wallet being dormant doesn't necessarily define or tell anything about its owner... A lot of Bitcoin holders are way more patient than we can imagine, which makes some wallets appear to be dormant.

And even if a wallet appears to be dormant, any decision that involves spending is definitely considered theft because the last time I checked, taking what does not legally belongs to you is actually a theft. Imagine finding yourself in a situation where you can't prove the source of the funds.

[Powerjumboo]

Guessing a key is not that easy, and I am not that lucky to guess a key or seed phrase that can unlock me a wallet with $1 billion in it haha. I love to daydream as well, but this one never came to my mind.

When we say something, we can say it very simply, but we don't understand how difficult it is to do. It is impossible to create a private key by guessing and match it with another wallet, because when we want to access the wallet with our private key, if there is a slight mistake, we will not be able to access our wallet. So I want to say that it is completely impossible to create a wallet based on guessing and see $1 billion in that wallet and we can never even think about this; even though we can access the wallet, it is impossible to see $1 billion there.

[EFS]

First of all the chances of this happening are very low, but let's say it does happen. You should spend the money however you want normally, but you need to be careful because the government will want their cut. You'll have a hard time converting it into cash.

This shouldn't be theft, you found it completely by chance. So there shouldn't be anything for you to be afraid of. You didn't just hit the jackpot, you hit the jackpot a couple of times in a row.

They used an absurd amount like $1 billion as the example. In that case, the wallet would have to belong to either Satoshi, one of the early adopters or an exchange. There aren't any other possibilities.

So, if the wallet doesn't belong to someone who has died, they won't let it go and they'll track the coins. You see, it becomes even harder for you to cash them out. Wish you had found a smaller wallet instead of a billion dollar one.

[Taskford]

First of all the chances of this happening are very low, but let's say it does happen. You should spend the money however you want normally, but you need to be careful because the government will want their cut. You'll have a hard time converting it into cash.

This shouldn't be theft, you found it completely by chance. So there shouldn't be anything for you to be afraid of. You didn't just hit the jackpot, you hit the jackpot a couple of times in a row.

They used an absurd amount like $1 billion as the example. In that case, the wallet would have to belong to either Satoshi, one of the early adopters or an exchange. There aren't any other possibilities.

So, if the wallet doesn't belong to someone who has died, they won't let it go and they'll track the coins. You see, it becomes even harder for you to cash them out. Wish you had found a smaller wallet instead of a billion dollar one.

Whatever things they have said it does not erase the fact that, they might face criminal liability if they decide to take the funds out of that wallet. That one does not belong to them and they must not think about crazy things in that wallet.

Also any movement happening with coins inside will be tracked. So those people thinking doing that will get followed. Also chances is high that their transaction made might get block or freeze by exchange if they move that directly in that platform.

If the owner is alive for sure they are finding ways to retrieve that. Much smaller funds might easy to take out, but there's small possibilities that OP's assumption will happen in real time.

[Smartvirus]

Let's not lie, we'll all be tempted by it especially that amount can already change your life in an instant. So I'd probably monitor it for some time to  see if it's really a dormant one before doing anything.

Feeling tempted by something that is likely to get you arrested is wild. In fact, the process of even guessing a random seed phrase with such an amount, automatically puts a person one step closer to ending up in prison. A wallet being dormant doesn't necessarily define or tell anything about its owner... A lot of Bitcoin holders are way more patient than we can imagine, which makes some wallets appear to be dormant.

No one knows the amount a wallet holds while making these guesses. You can’t identify a public address and go about to guess its seed phrase, that’s next to impossible.

Well, it’s easy to assume a wallet is dormant, especially with the fact that wallets don’t come with tags and when it’s got no recent transaction on it.

The bottom line always remains that, it’s not your coin and you’ve got no business sniffing around, trying to guess seed phrases that is not yours. That’s an act by someone whom is up to no good.

[uneng]

The bottom line always remains that, it’s not your coin and you’ve got no business sniffing around, trying to guess seed phrases that is not yours. That’s an act by someone whom is up to no good.

It's true. Why would the person be trying to guess the password to third party wallets at first place? Only by doing that it's already a very shady action which indicates bad intentions. It's different from finding paper money dropped on the streets out of nothing, for an example. Probably the best decision in this case would be to leave the money on the wallet as it was found, without telling anyone what happened, neither touching that money in anyways...

Not your keys, not your coins, anyway.

[moneystery]

Seeing that he managed to guess or discover the private key by luck, and successfully accessed a wallet with a huge amount, I think anyone in that situation would definitely think about cashing out that Bitcoin. But with a wallet that big, I think whoever owns it isn't an ordinary person, they must be a major holder-- and the person who found it is probably just hoping that the wallet owner won't wake up and become active again.
But if it turns out the wallet owner is still alive and realizes their wallet has been hacked, then whoever discovers the private key and gains access to the wallet would have a really hard time cashing out the Bitcoin because it could immediately draw attention and potentially reveal their identity directly, and they could clearly end up in a tough spot.

[Franctoshi]

They said not your keys 🗝️ not your crypto, so what happens when you have the keys of a wallet? Then that becomes your crypto because who holds the key owns the crypto, in as much as you didn't break any law, but in a situation the person that owns the Bitcoin is active, let's say you move the funds out to a different wallet and the person noticed and traces you with the law enforcement agencies and get you caught, you have nothing to explain besides you've automatically becomes a criminal.

[MusaMohamed]

It's true. Why would the person be trying to guess the password to third party wallets at first place? Only by doing that it's already a very shady action which indicates bad intentions. It's different from finding paper money dropped on the streets out of nothing, for an example. Probably the best decision in this case would be to leave the money on the wallet as it was found, without telling anyone what happened, neither touching that money in anyways...

Guess or brute force a wallet password is more simple than brute force a Bitcoin wallet seed phrase or Bitcoin private key.
Easy or more difficult, it depends on either the wallet password is weak or medium, strong or very strong.

People must know that there are two ways to access a Bitcoin wallet, hot wallet for example.
Knowing or brute forcing the wallet password to access it.
Having access to wallet backups with wallet seed phrase, so if people store their wallet backups carelessly, they might lose their bitcoin in such situations.

Not your keys, not your coins, anyway.

It's always true but the condition is you created your wallet rightly, and you chose a good wallet to generate your own wallet.

Coldcard incident shows that if you use a bad wallet, your keys won't mean your coins.

[Royal Cap]

Technically this is a huge debate Im surely wanted to know some answers. Whats your thought on this?

Although you said this hypothetically, because it is never possible that you will gain access to a wallet by randomly guessing the seed phrase. But if you do get it by mistake, then technically you own that wallet, because you could sign Bitcoin messages from that wallet. But from an ethical point of view, it is illegal. It is a bit like if you suddenly find a wallet on the street and bring it, legally it is not legal. Similarly, if you find the private key of an old unused wallet, it is also not legal. From an ethical point of view it is illegal.

[boyptc]

Boy, everyone who finds that they have found a private key with a billion in it will be shaking.

And I think someone who guesses or brute forces private keys are mainly the hackers or those who are using AI in trying to crack someone else's private key.

But handing it over to me in a free will by someone that entrusted it to me, I'm not sure what would I do with that and there's a lot of conditions that I have to think of first before doing so.