Forgot Bitcoin password: Germans are locked out of millions of treasures

Forgot Bitcoin Password
German treasure remains locked

Anyone who owns Bitcoins can look forward to rapid price gains. However, it gets really annoying when you don't have access to your digital wallet. A programmer has lost his password and therefore cannot reach a fortune running into the millions.

Stefan Thomas has something that many people should envy him for: around 7000 bitcoins. Given the rapid price development, the treasure is currently worth around $ 220 million. However, the German who lives in San Francisco cannot pick it up – because he has forgotten the password that gives him access to a small hard drive. The keys of the wallets in which these bitcoins are stored are secured on it.

As Thomas told the New York Times, he lost the slip of paper on which he wrote the password. He has already carried out eight out of ten possible attempts. This means that he can only try twice to enter the correct password. If these attempts are also wrong, access to the hard disk is permanently closed and its content is also encrypted.

"I was lying in bed and thinking about it," said Thomas. "Then I sat down at the computer with a new strategy – but that didn't work either and I was desperate again." In the meantime he has reached a point where he says to himself: "Leave it alone – for the sake of your mental health alone."

The programmer is not alone in this. According to the newspaper, Chainalysis cryptocurrency analysts estimate that of the current 18.5 million Bitcoins, around 20 percent are in forgotten or inaccessible wallets. Current value: about $ 140 billion. Many of them come from the early days of Bitcoin ten years ago, when the crypto currency was hardly worth anything and it was hardly noticed.

Hard drive hidden

Thomas got the Bitcoins in 2011 from a Bitcoin enthusiast after producing an animated video popular with supporters of the cryptocurrency. Since then, the Bitcoin course has been on a roller coaster and has now reached dizzying heights.

The programmer can still bear the loss. He has collected enough bitcoins in recent years and has access. As a result, he has more money than he can spend. Nevertheless, Thomas is skeptical of the basic idea of ​​Bitcoin that every user can be his own bank. "Let me put it this way: do you make your own shoes?" He told the New York Times. "We have banks because we don't want to worry about all the things that banks do."

The forgotten or inaccessible bitcoins show a problem with the cryptocurrency. If you forget the access data to traditional accounts, you are not locked out forever. The banks can restore access.

Thomas has now moved the hard drive to a safe place. It is possible that at some point a way will be found to bypass their security.

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