A case has emerged in which 5 BTC were recovered from a bitcoin wallet that had been locked for more than 11 years.

BeInCrypto, a blockchain media outlet, reported on May 13 that an X user cprkrn said they succeeded in recovering the wallet after uploading old computer files from their college days to Anthropic's AI model Claude.

cprkrn explained that Claude found an encrypted wallet file in the data. They said they then used the widely used open-source recovery tool btcrecover to map out a decryption path. They decoded the private key, converted it into a wallet import format and recovered the assets.

According to materials released with the post, Claude found that btcrecover concatenates a shared-key value and a user password during decryption. After correcting this logic, the private key was decrypted on the first run, the materials said. A mnemonic that the user said they found again a few weeks earlier also served as a key clue in the recovery process. cprkrn said they changed the original password not long after setting it during college.

They said that as a last resort they entered an entire computer they had used in the past into Claude. They also said that when using a commercial recovery service earlier, they paid about $250 for each failure but did not get any meaningful results.

Market and industry reactions followed quickly. The post surpassed 1 million views within hours, and Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter called it an "unbelievable result". Crypto journalist Laura Shin and Base founder Jesse Pollak expressed reactions to a similar effect.

The case is drawing attention amid an expanding range of uses for general-purpose AI. The recovery went through multiple steps, including searching wallet files, checking password rules, modifying tools and converting keys.

The value of the recovered 5 BTC is about $400,000 at the current bitcoin price of about $79,500. The amount is large, and it is also drawing more interest because funds were actually recovered from a wallet that had not moved for a long time.

The issue of long-dormant wallets has also come back into focus. Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode showed about one-third of bitcoin's total supply is held in wallets that have not moved for years. Against that backdrop, the case shows renewed recovery potential for holders who still have old saved files or notes.

Still, it is unclear whether the same method will apply to other wallets. Whether recovery succeeds depends on what files remain on old devices and whether any clues written at the time exist. cprkrn advised people to check all data left on old computers and laptops before giving up.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT OMG CLAUDE JUST CRACKED THIS SHIT, THANK YOU @AnthropicAI THANK YOU @DarioAmodei NAMING MY KID AFTER YOU https://t.co/gObNirRDpS https://t.co/ByTdIM4d20 pic.twitter.com/xB5LUJb6Pe"