It would seem that a simple action – to write a few words on paper – is fraught with a lot of tricks that can significantly complicate the restoration of access to a cryptocurrency wallet.
According to experts, they were contacted by a cryptocurrency holder named Sam, who told the following story. He recently went through a divorce and his father-in-law wanted his ETH back from Sam’s Ledger hardware wallet. The device itself was broken. Then Sam remembered that, according to the instructions, he wrote down a 24-word seed phrase to restore access. When he tried to transfer his old wallet to a new Ledger device, it turned out that some of the words from the seed phrase were impossible to read.
Although Sam is generally difficult to call the owner of good handwriting, the problem was caused by decoding only five words, the numbers of which are highlighted in the image. The specialists were sure that they could quickly help Sam solve the riddle, but everything turned out to be somewhat more complicated.
Initially, the following assumptions were made:
1. Crouch
3. Blind
6. Battery
7. Oven
13. Unclear, but it looks like it ends with “ral”
With numbers 1,3 and 7, everything was more or less clear, but what is under the number 6? Sounds like “battery” assuming Sam missed a letter. The catch is that “battery” is not part of the BIP39 word set used by Ledger.
It was decided to abandon attempts to restore access on our own and resort to special tools that allow you to select seed phrases with only part of the information available. However, doing this with five completely missing words is almost impossible. Then the specialists modified the program in such a way that it accepted words in which only individual elements or letters are known, and carried out a selection according to the BIP39 list.
Based on the information entered, over 7 billion variants of seed phrases were received, which theoretically could unlock the wallet. After checking almost half of them, I found a suitable option:
1. Crouch
3. Bread
6. Betray
7. Oven
13. Moral
Sam’s assets were saved and sent to his new address on the Ethereum blockchain. Previously, a similar task was given to community members by entrepreneur Alistair Milne, from whose wallet a successful cracker was able to withdraw one bitcoin.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
