German programmer Stefan Thomas made headlines this week after a lost password made his $ 220 million bitcoin stock unreachable.
As Insider reported earlier, the secure hard drive, on which 7,002 bitcoins were stored, was an IronKey device. It gives owners 10 chances to guess their password before encrypting the content. Thomas only had two more attempts to guess correctly before this situation occurred.
The New York Times initially reported on Thomas and quoted him as saying, “I would just lie in bed and think about it: then I would go to the computer with some new strategy and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”
A potential loss of this magnitude makes “you question your own worth,” he added. On Saturday, the stock was worth about $ 220 million, but as bitcoin prices soared this year, it was valued above $ 240 million.
Read more: Bitcoin falls below $ 35,000 in volatile trading week
After his story went viral, he gave another interview to KGO-TV, telling the station “time heals all wounds” and that he had made peace with his potential loss.
He added: “It was a really big milestone in my life, where, like, I realized how I would define my self-esteem going forward. It wouldn’t be about how much money I have in my bank account.”
Thomas, a programmer who now lives in San Francisco, is one of several bitcoin owners who have been prevented from accessing their wallets. This left a large amount of $ 140 million Bitcoins unable to be recovered.
In another case, a Welshman says he threw out a hard drive loaded with 7,500 bitcoin in 2013. He is offering his board $ 70 million to dig it up from the city dump.
Bitcoin recently rose again above $ 40,000, despite the head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, calling for more regulation the day before. On Friday, it dropped to less than $ 35,000 at the end of a week of volatile trading.