Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Wallet Hacked by Researchers to Unlock Massive Fortune

Joe Grand, a prominent hardware hacker, has managed to gain access to a cryptocurrency wallet that contains $3 million worth of Bitcoin, The Wired reports. 

Grand managed to crack a password to the wallet after being contacted by an unfortunate crypto holder from Europe.

An encrypted file that was storing the wallet's RoboForm-generated password got corrupted, which prevented the holder from accessing his Bitcoin fortune that was initially acquired in 2013. 

Grand, who is known as "Kingpin" in the hacker community, gained popularity after appearing on "Prototype This!" back in 2008. He appeared on the show alongside other investors such as Terry Sandin and Doc North. 

This is not the first time that Grand has gained access to crypto wallets. In 2022, he managed to force a hardware wallet from Trezor to reveal its password. That said, he usually turns down such requests from cryptocurrency owners for various reasons.

Cracking the RoboForm-generated password was more complicated since the European holder used a software wallet. Various cryptocurrency experts told him that it was impossible to retrieve the Bitcoin fortune.

In order to hack this software wallet, Grand teamed up with his German friend in order to reverse engineer the exact version of RoboForm that was used for generating the lost password. Luckily for the holder, it turned out that the version had a major flaw that made its password generation process not completely random. In fact, it was relatively easy to guess the password that was generated on a specific day. 

The fact that the holder could not recall the exact day when this password was generated complicated the process, but Grand and his friend managed to define the correct time range.

The holder now says that he was lucky to lose access to his wallet given that his Bitcoin has appreciated a lot over these years. Now, he is waiting for the cryptocurrency to hit six digits.