From 2009 up to 2012 Bitcoin miners got the biggest rewards, 50 BTC per block. It was a few enthusiasts who made history. They sent transactions to each other and mined new blocks on old laptops.

Bitcoin was a big experiment and nothing cost. Private keys were left, some wallets deleted, someone threw disks and paper trash to garbage. Some of the bitcoins are “burned” by random transfer to draw wallets (for example, 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE), for the sake of curiosity.

The first mention of the password-protected wallet.dat file with the balance on board was on the Reddit forum a few years ago when bitcoin cost high. The author of the post found his old flashcard and could not remember the password from the Bitcoin-Qt application. He picked up all possible password combinations and found out whether it was possible to find his password by brute force. But got fail

We found the first wallet of this kind in the private forum, where it was offered to download and try brute force for free. Next, we found offers for the sale of password-protected wallets. We bought them, and some managed to be exchanged for existing ones.

After half a year, we made the largest online store selling password-protected wallet.dat files. A total of 30 files for 2414+ BTC (or more than $ 20 million).

https://allprivatekeys.com/wallet.dat

We carefully checked each of the wallets for: sources of funds, bitcoin addresses, and mentions on the Internet. We were surprised when we found mined coins from Satoshi Nakamoto’s treasures. Despite the fact that these wallets are considered “dead” and there is no movement on them, data on them periodically appears on the network.

For example, Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed inventor of Bitcoin, assures that he has private keys to all addresses until 2011. And this is contrary to our findings. For example, the address 1DFo9TYjyKT7Rwa1Nx7G3STMRHBFUC2hUB received a reward of 50 BTC for block 30371 found in December 2009. This address is included in the password-protected wallet

And this is not our only wallet with the premine of those years. Imagine what could happen to the Bitcoin exchange rate if the password is picked up and the money moves at these addresses. Indeed, many people and companies are closely watching these addresses.
Another interesting fact is that almost all bitcoin addresses from these wallets have fork coins. For example, the address 1HZNsUqQxKVLmfPfCAzLwrnVDzx8CxwxnM contains Bitcoin Cash 575.99080160 BCH, Bitcoin Gold 575.99080160 BTG, Bitcoin SV 575.99080160 BSV. And this is a lot of money, not even counting the coins of the main network.

It is almost impossible to find a private key to someone else’s bitcoin address. Finding a password invented by a person is much easier. But do not forget that the password can consist of different alphabets, registers, numbers, and signs, which greatly complicates the selection. In addition, the longer the password, the more options for brute force and the longer to crack it. In any case, it will be a good experience and an opportunity to hit the jackpot.