It is well known that Bitcoin wallets require a private key to be able to move and perform transactions with what the wallet holds.

In the event that the key is lost or forgotten, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to access the wallet.

Digital wallets differ from one wallet to another according to the nature of their work. Some of them, for more security, add other layers of security, such as two-step verification, adding a password, using a fingerprint or iris…

Stephen Thomas owns a digital wallet with $240 million worth of Bitcoin in it, but unfortunately he forgot the password.

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Here is the full story of Thomas and his $240 million digital wallet.

Stephen Thomas and his digital wallet:

Thomas is a computer programmer based in San Francisco who, a decade ago, received 7,002 bitcoins as a reward for making a video explaining how cryptocurrencies work.

Below is the video that Thomas made in exchange for Bitcoin:

By the time he got paid, the bitcoin was worth between $2 and $6, and he didn’t want to cash it, but just stored it in a digital wallet and forgot about it.

Now each bitcoin is worth more than $34,000, meaning the contents of the wallet are estimated at $240 million.

Unfortunately, Thomas forgot the password that would open the door to his fortune.

He has already entered the wrong password eight times, and if he guesses wrong two more times, his hard drive will be encrypted with the keys to his bitcoins.

Bitcoin price reached over $40,000 last week, after doubling in less than a month.

The price of Bitcoin has since declined but is still up more than 700% since the coronavirus was first announced in March of last year.

Read:Bitcoin Enters Fourth Wave of Adoption According to Analyst

Thomas stated that he tried the eight most used passwords to access the hard drive, but all turned out to be wrong.

Note that the device automatically encrypts all content after an inaccurate tenth guess.

Thomas told the New York Times:

I was lying in my bed thinking about it.

Then I go to the computer with some new strategy, and it doesn’t work, then I get desperate again.

Thomas said that the experience kept him away from cryptocurrencies, as he stated:

I am against the idea of ​​being your own bank.

Let me describe it this way, do you make your own shoes?

The reason we have banks is because we don’t want to deal with all those things that banks do.

After the announcement of Thomas’ story, Alex Stamos, an internet security expert at the Stanford Internet Observatory, told that he could crack the password within six months if Thomas gave him 10% of his digital fortune.

As Alex said on Twitter:

For $220 million in reserved bitcoin, you can’t make 10 password guesses, but you can take it to the pros to buy “20 IronKeys” and spend six months finding or unchecking a side channel.

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I’ll get that for 10%.

talk me.

Um, for $220 million in locked Bitcoin, you can’t make 10 password guesses but you can take it to the pros to buy 20 IronKeys and spend six months finding or unchecking a side channel.

I’ll get that for 10%. talk me.

– Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) January 12 2021

According to cryptocurrency data company Chainalysis, about 20% of the current 18.5 million bitcoins appear to be missing or stuck in inaccessible wallets.

In 2013, in a story no less exciting than that of our current article, James Howells threw away a hard drive containing keys for about 7,500 bitcoins.

Now the value of the bitcoin that Howells disposed of is more than $250 million.

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