Stefan Thomas exhausted 8 of 10 attempts allowed by the system to protect his 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC), before block your funds forever. They are about $203,000,000 at the BTC price these days (around $29,000).
At this point, and with only 2 tries to go, the young man of German origin also feels that he has exhausted his hopes of recovering the money.
His ordeal began a few years ago, when he wanted to access the 7,002 BTC that, at that time, was listed at $38,496. It was then that the German programmer who lives in the city of San Francisco, United States, discovered that he had lost the paper where he had written down the access code to his disk.
In Stefan’s defense, it must be clarified that the first users of cryptocurrencies, “early adopters” or pioneer consumers, used to keep their Bitcoins in a cold wallet (cold wallet) with encryption. But, over time, passwords were lost or forgotten, and since Bitcoin is a decentralized system, there is no one to call or turn to to retrieve or ask for a password.
In fact, estimates by the specialized consultancy Chainalysis indicate that almost 20% of Bitcoin accounts belong to holders who have lost or forgotten their passwords and, therefore, cannot access their funds.
Why it is difficult to recover a blocked cryptocurrency account
Online or digital services usually have several opportunities to recover a blocked account, either with questions or via email. However, in the case of cryptocurrencies, this does not happen because, in many cases, they present diverse and complex security mechanisms to access them and thus avoid any attack or theft of your funds.
Of course, the counterpart is that there is also a risk that what happened to Stefan Thomas will happen.
In your specific case, the bitcoins are stored on a small encrypted hard drive, called IronKey. It is a flash disk that offers security and privacy; but it only allows 10 attempts to enter a wrong key before formatting and deleting the content.
Good old Thomas, who saved his fortune in cryptocurrencies almost 10 years ago, has already tried eight times with some of his usual passwords or used in other cases and, for the moment, he has not been able to remember the correct one.
The ordeal began at a time when Bitcoin was on the rise, he wanted to access to sell them
Exhausted many of the options, the boy saves his last two attempts as stretching an agony that, it seems, no longer makes sense because the young man himself claimed “to have lost hope” in a note with the New York Times.
“The first time I found out I had lost the coins I was kind of shocked, I tried everything,” Thomas revealed. And he acknowledged that, finally, he accepted what had happened: “Today I am happy that all I lost was money“.
The German wrote on a piece of paper the password to access, at that time, his investment in Bitcoin, and left it on his desk for a long time.
However, one day, the paper was no longer in sight and without Stefan realizing it was lost.
Of course, the opportunity to access the millions of dollars he had in Bitcoin when he wanted to access his account also disappeared, after a sharp increase in the price of the most famous cryptocurrency.
In his interview with the American newspaper, Thomas recalled that “I would lie in bed and think about it. Then I would go to the computer with a new strategy, and it didn’t work, and I would be back. desperate“.
And who wouldn’t be desperate with just two attempts to access a million-dollar fortune.
The truth is that if Stefan Thomas fails those opportunities again, the system will be formatted and he will permanently lose his keys and, worse still, access to 7,002 BTC; that is, about 200 million dollars.
