https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buz...es-left/707651
Well this would certainly suck.
Stefan Thomas has forgotten his Bitcoin password that will unlock a fortune worth $220 million (Rs 1,800 crore). He has just two attempts left to guess the password.
San Francisco: Ever forgotten your password and after eight desperate attempts left with just two? Stefan Thomas, a German programmer based in San Francisco, cannot remember the password to unlock his Bitcoin fortune worth $220 million (Rs 1,800 crore).
Thomas was given 7,002 bitcoins as payment for making a video explaining how cryptocurrency works over a decade ago. At that time, bitcoins were worth a few dollars. However, their value has surged in the recent months and one Bitcoin is currently worth $34,000.
Thomas had stored the bitcoins in an IronKey digital wallet on a hard drive and written the password on a piece of paper he lost. After 10 failed attempts, the password will encrypt itself and the wallet will be impossible to access. Thomas has just two attempts left.
It has been nine years since he first realised that he was locked out of his account. "There were sort of a couple weeks where I was just desperate, I don't have any other word to describe it. You sort of question your own self-worth. What kind of person loses something that important?" he told ABC7 News.
However, he said, "time heals all wounds," adding that he has "made peace" with his loss.
"It was actually a really big milestone in my life where, like, I sort of realized how I was going to define my self-worth going forward. It wasn't going to be about how much money I have in my bank account," he said.
Thomas would not be the first potential Bitcoin millionaire to be locked out of his account. According to cryptocurrency-data company Chainanalysis, about $140 billion worth of Bitcoin is lost or left in wallets that cannot be accessed.
[Reply]
Originally Posted by Straight, No Chaser:
People tend to cycle passwords. He needs to figure what he was using back then and try it.
The secret seed is a bit more complicated than something like "password1!".
Its not something that can be guessed.
[Reply]
Originally Posted by InChiefsHeaven:
I don't know about any of this stuff, but I would imagine the password you have to set up is like super complicated. I remember when MS rolled out Windows Vista (I think) it had an encryption feature with like a 64 character password or some shit. Is this similar to that? If so...that shit is designed not to be remembered let alone hacked.
I wonder if that was part of the initial plan in the grand scheme of things. First theres a limited number of bitcoin ,second all the passwords have to be so complicated they can't be remembered knowing 20% of all bitcoin will eventually be lost.
[Reply]