Two attempts for $220 million

[ene1980]

In the initial stages many lost their passwords and private keys and many of the coins are lost and this is not the first time i am hearing these sob stories, first heard about these sob stories when the price of bitcoin rallied in 2013 and there were many who even knew their wallet address but they can only stair at their coins as they is no way they could recover their passwords.

[DdmrDdmr]

@mole0815 pointed out that Stephan has a profile here on Bitcointalk: Stefan Tomas.

Going over his posts, he is a long standing Bitcointalk member, who was pretty involved in the early years (See for example referenced here https://bithope.org/campaign/support-the-bitcointalk-forum), and crossed posts with some of the most noticeable profiles here at the time.
 
In this article on the NY times, they mention how he was paid something like 7002 BTCs back in 2011 for creating a video on bitcoin:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um63OQz3bjo

I was doubtful as to whether the German programmer, and the profile here on Bitcointalk, were indeed the same person (and not just a name/surname coincidence), but it seems that they are indeed the same:
Bounty for Bitcoin Animated Movie [won] .
The video is the same one referenced in the NYTimes article, and the thread has relevant posts made by Stephan about the video (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=697.msg833066#msg833066 for example).

It looks like what the world sees as "a German programmer", is also part of the Bitcointalk’s history …