One typo cost 7 years of access to my BTC — finally cracked it
A Reddit user shared how a single typo in his password caused him to lose access to his BIP38-encrypted paper bitcoin wallet for seven years. In 2017, he created the wallet using a password inspired by his favourite band, but errors in typing the password rendered all access attempts futile for a long time. This story highlights how critical password accuracy is when dealing with cryptocurrency.
Initially, he spent months attempting to guess the correct password, experimenting with different keyboard layouts (AZERTY, QWERTY) and variations. Eventually, he realised there were over 800 billion possible password variations due to random caps and typos, which made recovery extremely difficult. Only after switching to a full audit mode and generating “smart” password variations based on the alphabetical order of his favourite band’s name was he able to decrypt the wallet.
This case emphasises the importance of careful password management and shows that even a small typo can cost many years of lost access to crypto assets. Moving forward, he will likely be more cautious with password storage and may consider more reliable key management methods.
