Bitcoin2john

John the Ripper sees this line and knows: "I need to take candidate passwords, run them through the same key derivation function (KDF) with that exact salt and iteration count, and compare the result to the encrypted master key."

If John returns No password hashes loaded , you likely forgot to strip the filename prefix from the hash. Re-check the clean hash file. Bitcoin2john

serves a single, crucial purpose: It converts an encrypted Bitcoin Core wallet ( wallet.dat ) into a hash format that password recovery tools understand. John the Ripper sees this line and knows: