One typo cost me 7 years of access to my BTC - finally cracked it

TITLE: Finally recovered my BIP38 wallet after 7 years - sharing what worked

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone.

In 2017 I encrypted a paper wallet with BIP38. Was paranoid about security. Used what I thought was a memorable password based on my favorite band.

Fast forward to 2024... I couldn't unlock it. Tried for MONTHS.

The password was right in my head but nothing worked. I thought maybe: - Wrong capitalization? - Typo I never noticed? - Keyboard layout issue? (I switch between AZERTY and QWERTY)

Tried btcrecover, hashcat... too slow for BIP38 EC-multiply. We're talking like 5-10 passwords per second. My wordlist had millions of variations.

So I started building my own tool. Focused on generating SMART variations based on how I actually type:

• Keys I often hit by accident
• Caps lock mistakes
• Missing characters
• Doubled letters

Long story short: found it. The password had ONE wrong character. A key right next to what I meant to press.

7 years. Thousands of attempts. One stupid typo.