a friend told me how the .1 BTC was accessed and I know of 3 encrypted files (pure salted string, pkzip with salted string inside and the rar with password protection) hidden in the image, the qr, and the special image inside with additional chars (this was rather clever, i have to admit). now everything is password protected and i'm stuck

Did you plan this puzzle to be solved sooner rather than later? Do you hope for weeks, months or years?