Is the ninth time a charm? For Stefan Thomas, this is the $ 220 million question.
The San Francisco programmer, according to the New York Times, has 7,002 bitcoin BTCUSD,
on a digital wallet he can’t access it because, well, he lost his password. He tried to guess eight times without success. Now, he only has two more chances or his fortune will be lost.
The hard drive where your bitcoin is stored, known as IronKey, allows users 10 attempts to crack the code before encrypting its content forever. Understandably, it was a stressful time for Thomas, who years ago lost the piece of paper with the password.
“I just lay in bed and thought about it,” he told the Times in an interview. “So, I would go to the computer with some new strategy, but it wouldn’t work and I would be desperate again.”
Thomas is not the only one to have a password away from the riches of bitcoin. According to Chainalysis, about 20% of the existing 18.5 million bitcoins, valued at $ 140 billion, appear to have been lost in digital wallets.
Like many bitcoin enthusiasts, Thomas was attracted to cryptocurrency in part because it was not controlled by a traditional country or bank. Now, he’s having some doubts. “The whole idea of being your own bank – let me put it this way: ‘Do you make your own shoes?” he said. “The reason we have banks is that we don’t want to deal with all the things that banks do.”
But don’t feel bad for Thomas. He has enough bitcoin to “give him more wealth than he knows what to do,” reported the Times. He also profited from Ripple XRPUSD,
a cryptocurrency startup that he joined in 2012.
At the last check on Tuesday, bitcoin was trading above $ 34,000 and is now about 320% above last year, while the S&P 500 SPX,
won 17%.