Posted on 01/12/2021 9:14:26 AM PST by Theoria
Bitcoin owners are getting rich because the cryptocurrency has soared. But what happens when you can’t access that wealth because you forgot the password to your digital wallet?
Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million.
The password will let him unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds 7,002 Bitcoin. While the price of Bitcoin dropped sharply on Monday, it is still up more than 50 percent from just a month ago when it passed its previous all-time high around $20,000.
The problem is that Mr. Thomas years ago lost the paper where he wrote down the password for his IronKey, which gives users 10 guesses before it seizes up and encrypts its contents forever. He has since tried eight of his most commonly used password formulations — to no avail.
“I would just lay in bed and think about it,” Mr. Thomas said. “Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”
Bitcoin, which has been on an extraordinary and volatile eight-month run, has made a lot of its holders very rich in a short period of time, even as the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the world economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Just too funny.
...stupid enough to forget his password.
On May 22, 2010, now known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, software developer Laszlo Hanyecz agreed to pay 10,000 Bitcoins for two delivered Papa John’s pizzas. This was the first bitcoin commercial transaction.
The present market value of those bitcoins / two pizzas is $350,000,000
“Smart enough to invest when he did...
...stupid enough to forget his password.”
Love it when people post without reading the article!
They claim to own something (I don't even know what bitcoin is or are) that's worth $220 million and they can't access it and may lose it all, because they can't remember their password?
Sounds like the biggest scam outside of the climate change hoax I've ever heard of.
BTW--I have zero sympathy for him or anyone else who forgets a password.
Same thing happened to Sheldon and Leonard on the Big Bang Theory several years ago...: )
If ONLY he had gone with, password.
About reading the article, no way I’d read New York Time drivel.
It worked until I had to change computers...
It feels like a scam, until you get paid out.
Its definitely NOT A SCAM!!
The problem is that Mr. Thomas years ago lost the paper where he wrote down the password for his IronKey...
—
Perfect. ‘Cause writing down a password on a sheet of paper is super secure, especially when dealing with a possible $200M fortune.
I’d give him a strategy, other than exhausting his last two guesses, but he’s too stupid to warrant help.
In fact, considering the alleged amount of money involved, I’m beginning to think this story is fake. Nobody could be this dumb.
Even then, this is like stocks. It's equity. It's paper or nowadays just digital binary code, that is not concrete. You can't touch it, feel it, hold, it, put it under your mattress, carry it in your wallet or make it into fine jewelry.
It's only value is what people agree it is. And even that seems pretty nebulous. It's worthless if everybody says it is.
It's like the non-existent "lock box" Al Gore claimed our Social Security contribution funds were in, during his debate with GW Bush. Yeah, right, Al.
It is the gleam in some con artist's eye.
Id bet its not fake.
I have a crypto wallet, not this particular one, but the instruction state in bold letters,
DO NOT LOSE YOUR PASSWORD, because if you do, there is a chance
you will never be able to access your currencies.
Lol,I always use “invalid”. That way you type in anything and the PC says, your password is invalid :-)
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