Here’s what actually happened:

> he had the seed phrase the whole time
> but the wallet itself was password protected
> years ago in college, he changed the password while high and forgot it
> he spent years trying random passwords manually
> even paid for wallet cracking attempts but nothing worked

> As a last desperate attempt, he dumped old files from his college computer into Claude.

> Claude found an old wallet file hidden somewhere in the mess.

Using an old mnemonic/password clue he recovered, the wallet finally opened after more than a decade.

This is genuinely one of the most crypto stories ever