grin-recover.py - A Python wallet recovery tool
I created a simple script to help recover or brute-force grin wallets.
I hope it will be useful 
Motivation
I build this recovery script/tool for three reasons:
- I thought it would be fun to make such a tool
- I hope it will be useful to have this tool for the project. In the coming Bull market(s), people often find out they forgot some of their wallet passwords. This tool can help you regain access to your valuable ใ as long as you have some knowledge of your password.
- I wanted to showcase how easy and useful it is to have a Python library like @renzokukenโs Grinventions mimblewimble-py around. At the moment there is a Funding/Donation discussion going on for this project.
Should the CC donate to Grinvention - mimblewimble.py? - #20 by nirg
Time it took to build this tool
- <1 hour of coding
- 1 hour of documenting*
- 1 hour debugging to get mimblewimble-py to work because I have too many Python versions installed on 1 PC
I hope this shows how convenient it is to have Python libraries for various Grin components laying around. Below I will paste the content of the Readme.md file from github where I showcase the tool and discuss implications.
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grin-recover.py - A Grin Wallet Recovery Tool
grin-recover.py is an easy to use recovery script/tool to unlock your lost grin wallet,โฆ Alohomora!.
The scripts takes passwords printed from the console as input (STDIN) and tests if your wallet file can be unlocked.
This tool is powered by Grinventions mimblewimble-py library:
If this recovery tool was useful to you, you can thank the developer by donating to any of the following funds:
| # Fund | # Address | # Contact |
|---|---|---|
| Grinvention | grin1vcjsgk6rltncqh7cxjywukjfrf825d8a6xk77msfuhf9ev3r55wq7l2ng4 | renzokuken*keybase.io |
| Grin Community fund | grin1wm78wjsf2ws507hea4zqrcywxltjwhtgfrwzhdrr9l80l7tpz5fsj58lk0 | Keybase grincoin#community_fund |
| Grin CC fund | grin1jezf3lkcexvj3ydjwanan6khs42fr4036guh0c4vkc04fyxarl6svjzuuh | contact Anynomous on forum or Keybase |
How to use grin-recovery
Grin recovery is a Python script, to it requires you to
- Install Python (check your distribution, Linux comes with Python preinstalled, Window has Python in its APP store)
- Install mimblewimble-py
python -m pip install mimblewimble - Optionally for multi-threading install gnu-parallel, only works on bash, so on Windows I recommend installing Linux Subsystems for Windows
- To try different passwords combinations, download Hashcat. Note that Hashcat is not added to the path, so you have to run it from its specific directory, e.g. by pasting this script and your wallet file inside the Hashcat directory:
hashcat - advanced password recovery
Example command to run this script.
Note that the test wallet provided with the script has the password โTest123โ`. Note that on linux you have to use python 3, which often means you have to replace โpythonโ with 'python3โin the commands below. Similarly for installing libraries with โpipโ, if it doe not work, try โpip3โ. If you use CMD instead of bash, you can replace โcatโ with โtypeโ which prints the output of a file.
time cat passwords.txt | python grin-recover.py
time printf 'HelloWorld\n%.0s' {1..1000000} | python grin-recover.py
Benchmark speed/time for one million passwords
Single Core:
time printf 'HelloWorld\n%.0s' {1..1000000} | python grin-recover.py
Multi-threaded:
time printf 'HelloWorld\n%.0s' {1..10000000} | parallel --pipe -j 16 --blocksize 10000 --spreadstdin python grin-recover.py
Benchmark results on a Ryzen 7, 8 core 16 threads:
single core 6.700 pwds/second
multi core 16 thread 40.0000 pwds/second
Example using hashcat output with multithreading
./hashcat.exe -a1 words.txt endings.txt --stdout | parallel --pipe -j 16 --blocksize 100000 --spreadstdin python grin-recover.py
Help needed?
In case you cannot figure it out yourself, I can help. You can contact me as user Anynomous on https://forum.grin.mw/. Note that I will only help you if you show ample proof (such as knowledge of the password) to proof you are the owner of the wallet.
For issues with the code you can open a Github Issue.
Security implications
The above benchmarks show that on a decent CPU you can recover/brute-force a Grin wallets with 40.000 passwords per seconds. Should you be worried? No, not really. Bitcoin Core Wallets on a RTX2080-Ti GPU can be brute-forced with a speed of >10.000 passwords per second, while Electrum wallets can be recovered with a speed of close to a billion passwords per second. Having a recovery tool available is just a healthy part of any crypt-currencies ecosystem.
These benchmark results do show that you should use a reasonably safe password, e.g. two or three words, some numbers and a special character. You can use a typo or custom word to protect against dictionary attacks. Using a pin, e.g. 19261231, should be considered unsafe, it would take 8 minutes to brute force on a Ryzen 7 CPU. Obviously, you should not share your wallet.seed with anyone you do not completely trust with your funds. Since grin wallets can export the seed phrase, it is advised not to reuse a seed-phrase that you use for other wallets.
. I guess we are like minded in our way of thinking 
. I had the following ideas in mind for tools to build that would use mimblewimble-py: