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%)
Gox price drop in April 2014, they could not remember the passphrase.
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had encrypted their wallet in 2011 with a memorable phrase had not used it for two years. When they attempted to access it following the post-Mt. Gox
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2014)
Mobile or software wallet
An early Bitcoin adopter who had protected their wallet with a passphrase that included special Unicode characters discovered that their current keyboard could
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2014)
Mobile or software wallet
A 2014 forum case documents a user who had set their Bitcoin wallet passphrase to the answer of a personal security question. Over the following two years they
Passphrase unavailable — exchange custody (2014)
Exchange custody
An exchange customer whose account used 2FA via Google Authenticator lost access when their phone was wiped. They had not backed up the 2FA seed. The exchange's
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2014
Mobile or software wallet
A 2014 forum case describes a user who set their wallet passphrase to a combination of letters and numbers they associated with a former vehicle licence plate.
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2014)
Mobile or software wallet
A 2014 forum case describes a developer who protected their Bitcoin wallet with a passphrase generated by a custom script. The script was lost in a server migra
Passphrase unavailable — Armory (2014)
Mobile or software wallet
A 2014 forum case describes a user who had encrypted their Armory wallet and stored the passphrase in a KeePass database. The KeePass master password was itself
When moving offices in October 2014, the sticky note was lost in the move.
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had encrypted their Armory wallet stored the passphrase on a yellow sticky note on their monitor. When moving offices in October 2014, the sticky not
By 2014 the exact capitalisation and punctuation they had used was no longer fully
Mobile or software wallet
A forum post describes a user who had created a 'mental wallet' using a brain wallet generator in 2012, planning to memorise the passphrase permanently. By 2014
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2014)
Mobile or software wallet
A Bitcoin miner who had encrypted their wallet with a passphrase derived from a song lyric (as recommended in a 2012 forum guide) discovered in December 2014 th
Passphrase unavailable — Mt. Gox (2013)
Exchange custody
As Bitcoin exchanges in 2013 tightened account security, users who had created accounts in 2011 or 2012 with now-forgotten passwords and had not linked a recove
Brain wallet — software wallet (2013)
Mobile or software wallet
An early Bitcoin adopter who had created a brain wallet in 2010 found in 2013 that the passphrase phrase they had memorised was no longer fully recallable after
When the password manager service was discontinued, the stored passphrase was lost.
Mobile or software wallet
A 2013 Bitcointalk thread documented a case where a user had stored a wallet passphrase in an online password manager. When the password manager service was dis
The intended recipient found the paper wallet but could not spend the BTC because
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had generated a Bitcoin paper wallet for a gift in 2011 discovered in 2013 that they had also added an additional passphrase encryption to the privat
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet (2013)
Mobile or software wallet
A user who had been gifted Bitcoin in 2012 received it in a wallet.dat file with an encrypted passphrase set by the sender for security. The sender intended to
Passphrase unavailable — software wallet 2012
Mobile or software wallet
A user running an early version of Armory wallet had set an encryption passphrase they later could not recall. The wallet file existed and the software was func
Passphrase unavailable — exchange 2012
Exchange custody
A user lost access to an exchange account after forgetting the login password. The exchange had no viable account recovery mechanism at the time. The user event
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