A Man Might Lose His $220 Million USD Bitcoin Wallet After Forgetting Password
Oh no…
Bitcoin has become one of the hottest topics with the cryptocurrency reaching its peak at $42,000 USD last week. However, a New York Times article reports that numerous owners have been locked out of their Bitcoin wallets after forgetting their passwords.
Stefan Thomas, a German programmer based in San Francisco, was given 7,002 Bitcoins back in 2011. Now worth roughly $220 million USD, his account is about to get locked with just two password attempts left. The wallet is secured with a small hard drive called an IronKey, which gives users 10 password guesses before encrypting the content forever. Thomas had misplaced the piece of paper with the password years ago.
So far, he’s tried eight different password combinations, which have all failed. “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,” he shares. Thomas has put his IronKey in a secure facility for now. “I got to a point where I said to myself, ‘Let it be in the past, just for your own mental health.’”
