San Francisco-based programmer Stefan Thomas forgot the password from a secure external hard drive that holds the keys to an e-wallet containing 7,000 bitcoins – now worth nearly $ 300 million.
Stefan 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 tried eight of his most commonly used password formulations – no success.
“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.”
And this is not a unique case. According to the cryptocurrency company Chainalysis, of the available 19 million Bitcoins, about 20% are somehow lost by their owners. There are even companies that help find lost digital keys like Wallet Recovery Services.