Man Forgets Password To His Bitcoin Portfolio, Stands To Lose Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars

Back in the day when bitcoin wasn’t as highly-valued as it is today, people who got in early were paid a lot of it, since back then 1 bitcoin wasn’t worth as much as it is now. This was what programmer Stefan Thomas went through a few years ago, where he was paid 7,002 bitcoin for his services.

Thomas sought to protect his portfolio by locking his bitcoin in an IronKey hard drive, which is understandably a sensible precaution, but unfortunately for Thomas, he now stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars as he has forgotten the password to his drive. Speaking to the New York Times, Thomas said that he had initially written his password down on a piece of paper, but he has no idea where that paper is anymore.

IronKey hard drives typically give users 10 tries before it encrypts the data forever, and Thomas has since exhausted eight out of those ten tries, leaving him with two tries left. According to Thomas, “I would just lay in bed and think about it. Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”

It’s not surprising that Thomas is feeling desperate at this point in time. The value of bitcoin has skyrocketed over the years, and based on the current value, Thomas’ portfolio should be worth over $200 million. This means that should he lose access to his hard drive, that’s one hell of a payday he would be missing out on.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: bitcoin, cryptocurrency, Security