Part of the CustodyStress archive of observed Bitcoin custody incidents
Passphrase unavailable
Cases in this category involve wallets protected by a passphrase that could not be recovered. Even where the seed phrase was available, passphrase unavailability blocked access.
Passphrase unavailability differs from seed unavailability in that it often arises years after setup, when memory of an infrequently used passphrase has faded. Cases in this category frequently involve users who understood the concept of a passphrase but underestimated the precision required to reproduce it exactly. Even small variations in capitalization, spacing, or punctuation produce a different wallet.
217 observed cases
Blocked
152 (70%)
Constrained
2 (1%)
Survives
51 (24%)
Indeterminate
12 (6%)
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2023)
Mobile or software wallet
A Trust Wallet user who had set up their wallet in 2021 and used a 6-digit PIN attempted to access their wallet in 2023 after getting a new phone. Trust Wallet'
Passphrase unavailable — hardware wallet 2023
Hardware wallet (single key)
Trezor forum moderators published a reminder in early 2023 that the most common support case they received involved passphrase-locked hidden wallets—often set y
Investigation by the community revealed that a firmware change had altered how
Hardware wallet (single key)
A Trezor user reported on the Trezor forum in early 2023 that a passphrase they had used reliably for 18 months had stopped working after a firmware update. Inv
A MultiBit wallet user from 2013 attempted to access their wallet in early 2023.
Desktop Software Wallet
A MultiBit wallet user from 2013 attempted to access their wallet in early 2023. MultiBit was officially discontinued in 2017 and is no longer supported. The wa
The recovery took eleven days of GPU computation.
Hardware wallet (single key)
A user reported in early 2023 that they had successfully recovered a forgotten Trezor passphrase through a brute-force service after providing approximately 30
Passphrase unavailable — Trezor Model T (2023)
Hardware wallet (single key)
A Trezor Model T user attempted to access a wallet after switching devices in early 2023. The passphrase had been set using a keyboard layout on a device that u
Passphrase unavailable — Bitcoin Core (2023)
Desktop Software Wallet
A Bitcoin Core wallet user who had encrypted their wallet in 2015 with a complex password attempted to access the funds in April 2023 as the market recovered. E
Passphrase unavailable — desktop software wallet (2023)
Desktop Software Wallet
A Blockchain.com wallet user from the early v1 era contacted KeychainX in 2023 unable to recall the secondary wallet password set eight years prior. The v1 Bloc
Recovery was eventually achieved using btcrecover with a custom wordlist based on
Desktop Software Wallet
A user who had purchased Bitcoin in 2017 and stored it in an Electrum wallet attempted to move funds to a hardware wallet in June 2022 following the Celsius col
Passphrase unavailable — hardware wallet 2022
Hardware wallet (single key)
A user who had set a complex BIP39 passphrase in 2019 attempted to access their hardware wallet in July 2022 to move funds off exchanges following the Celsius c
The owner had 10 USD in the standard wallet but substantial holdings in
Hardware wallet (single key)
A case documented by KeychainX in August 2022 described a client who had forgotten the passphrase to a hidden wallet on a Trezor hardware device. The owner had
The user had a list of approximately 20 candidate passphrases from their habits at
Desktop Software Wallet
A Bitcoin holder who had used Electrum with a custom seed extension (additional passphrase) in 2016 attempted to restore the wallet in October 2022 and discover
The user offered a 4 BTC reward to anyone who could assist with recovery.
Hardware wallet (single key)
A BitcoinTalk forum user (Splashboard) posted in November 2022 that they had forgotten the passphrase to a Trezor hardware wallet and were locked out of their B
The passphrase—which they had set only 12 months earlier—could not be recalled.
Hardware wallet (single key)
A user who had set up a hardware wallet in late 2021 during the Bitcoin price peak attempted to access it in December 2022 to sell during the market downturn. T
The process took several weeks of GPU computation.
Desktop Software Wallet
A user on a Bitcoin recovery forum reported in 2022 that they had recovered access to an old Bitcoin Core wallet after forgetting the password. The user had set
The wallet had been encrypted with Bitcoin Core in 2013 and remained on an old hard
Desktop Software Wallet
A BitcoinTalk forum user (thak777) posted in February 2022 that they had successfully recovered access to a 2013-era Bitcoin wallet using WalletRecoveryServices
Hidden wallet discovered — Electrum (2022)
Desktop Software Wallet
A recurring case type documented by recovery services in 2022 involved users who had migrated from an older wallet—Multibit, Electrum, or Bitcoin Core—to a hard
Passphrase unavailable — Bitcoin Core (2022)
Desktop Software Wallet
A 2022 recovery case involved a Bitcoin Core wallet created in 2013 with an extremely short password. Although the password space was small, the wallet had been
Passphrase unavailable — hardware wallet 2022
Hardware wallet (single key)
A Trezor Model T user reported on the Trezor forum in early 2022 that a passphrase which had worked reliably for over a year had suddenly stopped producing the
Passphrase unavailable — hardware wallet (2022)
Hardware wallet (single key)
A documented pattern in 2022 hardware wallet recovery cases involved users who had set BIP39 passphrases years earlier and had either forgotten the exact string
Passphrase unavailable — Trezor (2022)
Hardware wallet (single key)
KeychainX documented in early 2022 that Trezor passphrase recovery cases had become their most common hardware wallet engagement type. The firm's custom GPU-acc
Hidden wallet discovered — Bitcoin Core (2022)
Desktop Software Wallet
ReWallet, a wallet recovery service, documented in 2022 that the most common cases they received involved forgotten Bitcoin Core wallet.dat passwords, often on
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2021
Mobile or software wallet
A user whose passphrase incorporated the mileage displayed on a specific vehicle on a specific date found in November 2021 that the vehicle's odometer records h
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2021
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin holder who had used a favourite chess opening's name as their passphrase found in October 2021 that the opening had two common English translations. O
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2021
Mobile or software wallet
A user found in October 2021 that their wallet passphrase was the name of a dog they had owned in 2012 combined with its birth year. The dog had been a gift and
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