Twitter/X

Claude recovered 5 BTC from a college laptop the owner stored in 2015; the poster…

2026-05-13 · 18:09 UTC ·@cryptopunk7213 ·1 min read

Brief

Claude recovered access to 5 BTC that a user stored on a college laptop in 2015 and had been locked out of for years; in a 2026 session the user uploaded the drive, Claude located an encrypted password file and—per the poster—used the passphrase to unlock roughly $400k worth of bitcoin. The poster credited Anthropic and Dario Amodei and shared a blockchain explorer link.

Why it matters

Claude recovered 5 BTC from a college laptop the owner stored in 2015; the poster says the coins were unlocked in a 2026 Claude session and are now worth about $400,000 (called “almost half a million”).

Key details

  • The poster claims Claude found an encrypted password file on the dumped hard drive and used the owner’s passphrase to access and unlock the wallet; the coins were allegedly worth $50,000 when lost in 2015.
  • Author @cryptopunk7213 (posting as @cprkrn) publicly thanked Anthropic and Dario Amodei and linked a blockchain.com explorer address as evidence.
Source evidence

i mean this story is absolutely insane

claude just recovered $400,000 of lost bitcoin that this guy lost access to 5 years ago... craziest part is he MADE money by losing access

> guy stores 5 bitcoin in his college laptop in 2015

> tries to access it years later, forgets password, locked out forever

> 2026: dumps his hard-drive into claude, asks it to figure out a solution.

> claude finds an encrypted password file, uses the guys passphrase to access it and unlocks his bitcoin!

his bitcoin was worth $50K back then, now he's got almost half a million

not bad for single claude session huh?

🍜 (@cprkrn)

HOLY FUCKING SHIT OMG CLAUDE JUST CRACKED THIS SHIT, THANK YOU @AnthropicAI THANK YOU @DarioAmodei NAMING MY KID AFTER YOU 😍

blockchain.com/explorer/addr…

— https://nitter.net/cprkrn/status/2054586810475364536#m