It All Started When
In 2013, a man publicly known only as Michael was ahead of the curve—mining and holding Bitcoin before it became household FOMO. With 43.6 BTC safely tucked away, Michael did what any responsible crypto user was told to do: protect his wallet with a strong password.
So he went extra secure. RoboForm secure.
That’s a password manager designed to generate ultra-complex, random, nearly unguessable keys. The kind of passwords that would make even a Trezor sweat.
Michael used RoboForm to create the password for his Bitcoin wallet, storing it locally on his encrypted computer. Then life happened. A system reformat wiped his password database. RoboForm didn’t auto-back it up. His multi-million dollar password was gone—like an invisible vault sealed shut with no combo, no reset button, and no one to call.
And Then
Michael tried everything over the years:
- Memory exercises
- PIN variations
- Password cracking software
- Even therapy, probably (if not, it was well-earned)
But the password just wouldn’t come back.
By 2023, his 43.6 Bitcoins were worth over $3 million—and still totally unreachable. Michael could see the wallet. Watch the balance grow. But accessing it? Not without that magical string of RoboForm gibberish.
Enter Joe Grand (aka @Kingpin), a legendary hardware hacker, and fellow hacker Bruno.
In what felt like a digital Ocean’s Eleven, Michael enlisted the duo to break into his own crypto wallet. The catch? They had one chance to get it right—because the software running the wallet would self-destruct (okay, just lock permanently) if too many wrong password attempts were made.
Using password memory fragments Michael vaguely recalled, plus an intimate knowledge of RoboForm’s 2013 password-generation patterns, Joe and Bruno reconstructed the password entropy. After months of prep, they gave it one carefully calculated shot.
It worked.
The wallet opened. 43.6 BTC came roaring back to life—after 11 years in cryptographic purgatory.
Does This Deserve the HODLaward?
👍 Click to vote: Did Michael earn a spot on the HODL Hall of Fame—or Shame?
🔐 Tag a friend who still uses “ilovedogs123” as their wallet password.
