Two attempts for $220 million

[Daltonik]

How forgotten passwords prevent crypto millionaires from getting their money. An article by Nathaniel Popper appeared in The New York Times about a programmer who lost his password to an encrypted storage with 7,002 BTC Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes

Stephen Thomas, a San Francisco based programmer, has only two attempts left to guess the password worth about $220 million. This combination will allow him to unlock the IronKey drive, which stores the private keys from a digital wallet with 7,002 BTC. He received this amount back in 2011, when he lived in Switzerland. One of the owners of the crypt simply gave him thousands of bitcoins as a reward for creating an animated video about the currency.

Stefan has already made eight attempts, he has tried eight of the passwords most often used by him unsuccessfully and Stefan is not alone in this trouble. Many people around the world have lost access to their bitcoins due to lost or forgotten passwords. According to analysts at cryptocurrency company Chainalysis, of the existing 18.5 million BTC, about 20% lie in lost or otherwise blocked wallets.  In total, this is about $140 billion.

“Through the years I would say I have spent hundreds of hours trying to get back into these wallets,” said Brad Yasar, an entrepreneur in Los Angeles who has a few desktop computers that contain thousands of Bitcoin he created, or mined, during the early days of the technology. While those Bitcoin are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he lost his passwords many years ago and has put the hard drives containing them in vacuum-sealed bags, out of sight...."

[1715214820]

1715214820

[1715214820]

1715214820

[1715214820]

1715214820

[RapTarX]

According to analysts at cryptocurrency company Chainalysis, of the existing 18.5 million BTC, about 20% lie in lost or otherwise blocked wallets.  In total, this is about $140 billion.

Is this amount reported to anywhere or people are speculation only? I guess there are a lot of early bitcoiners have lost their BTC in such a proceed; either forget the encrypted password or have spoiled their drive, hardware etc. There was another article where I have read it was 1 million.

[Obi theo]

I really don't know if it's true , but since they pump in bitcoin we are now getting new of lots of lost password but the true and fake news.
      For me I think the first time you get a wallet ,you must actually loss it , before understanding what you lost .

[smoolae]

I still don't get why would anyone hold their coins in a wallet that allows a finite attempts to log in.
Just keep your secret phrases and the fact you are playing around in the crypto field a secret.

[Silberman]

According to analysts at cryptocurrency company Chainalysis, of the existing 18.5 million BTC, about 20% lie in lost or otherwise blocked wallets.  In total, this is about $140 billion.

Is this amount reported to anywhere or people are speculation only? I guess there are a lot of early bitcoiners have lost their BTC in such a proceed; either forget the encrypted password or have spoiled their drive, hardware etc. There was another article where I have read it was 1 million.

Since there is now way to be sure of that information unless people reported those coins themselves then it is obvious it is an estimation more than anything, however think about it if the number is close to being true and we add the coins of satoshi and the coins that institutional investors have bought then we realize that the amount of bitcoins actually floating around exchanges is very small and it is bound to get smaller as time passes and bitcoin becomes more popular. Also it is such a shame that this person cannot access his coins, most likely he never thought those coins will be worth much and now he cannot get access to his rightful fortune.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

So another thread about the same topic as a Bitcoin millionaire who forgot his password Did we really need to fork that one which btw is a lot more active?

[Gozie51]

I really don't know if it's true , but since they pump in bitcoin we are now getting new of lots of lost password but the true and fake news.
     

I think is because people now feel regret when they see how much bitcoin price is and they put on their calculation to know what the worth is. This is unfortunate to people who have lost passwords to huge wallets. It can happen if we are not careful and that is why we need to always keep our password very secured.

For me I think the first time you get a wallet ,you must actually loss it , before understanding what you lost .

No because wise people learn from the mistakes made by other people that have gone through the road. We are growing and learning and should not be making mistakes we have read about.

[adzino]

This article and news has been circulating for days. Kinda feels like this is spreading negativity around the crypto space. But the comments are damn hilarious. There were people saying they knew this will happen. There were others saying its a ponzie scheme controlled by the "kingpins". They make you lose "passwords" so that you can't access the coins anymore after you paid them to buy bitcoin. One guy even asked why can't they "call bitcoin helpline" for resetting their account. Lmao! Shows how much people are unaware about bitcoin and the technology behind it.

Is this amount reported to anywhere or people are speculation only? I guess there are a lot of early bitcoiners have lost their BTC in such a proceed; either forget the encrypted password or have spoiled their drive, hardware etc. There was another article where I have read it was 1 million.

Speculation. Impossible to accurately find how many lost coins are there. Imagine how many wallets carry dust amount of coins.

[scottsanderman12]

Hollywood can make a movie with this guy.
thriller "attempts for beautiful life"

[xcaret]

Yes, I'm sure many people have forgotten their passwords and have lost the chance to recover their bit coin. ( hopefully minor amounts )
So ,being that only a set amount of bit coin will ever be available , does the lost bitcoin count as bit coin in circulation?
If the last bitcoin is ever sold and a tally taken would it show how many are missing ?
I'm thinking that when a county issues bank notes ,and were to recall them, they could know how many were still out there .
Could there be any hope for those who lost their bit coin due to forgotten passwords? 

[xcaret]

Hollywood can make a movie with this guy.
thriller "attempts for beautiful life"

How about thriller " how one man went insane from depression" Lol.

[vaultman]

Sounds like another headline for a news site, no matter if it's true or not, as long as there is another piece of news. I doubt that a person who owns such a large amount of bitcoins could in any way lose or forget their wallet password. In any case, such a number of coins will hardly affect Bitcoin in any way, because the loss is 7000, and there are 21 million of them in total.

[milani]

Lots of people especially among early investors lost their keys or access to their computers and lost lots of Bitcoins, and not Bitcoins only, other coins as well. Mostly it eas because of the lack of such kind of experience and lots of people did not clearly understood the consequences. Lots of people just did not imagine that those coins will cost so much. And nowadays lots of people loose their keys to other wallets with other tokens or coins because they are too sure in their memory. It is better to keep somewhere in protected place the copy of written or printed keys, and not much to tell about it to others.

[taufik123]

Sounds like another headline for a news site, no matter if it's true or not, as long as there is another piece of news. I doubt that a person who owns such a large amount of bitcoins could in any way lose or forget their wallet password. In any case, such a number of coins will hardly affect Bitcoin in any way, because the loss is 7000, and there are 21 million of them in total.

Anyone can lose large or small amounts of bitcoin. It all also depends on how to secure the private key or password for a wallet with thousands of bitcoin assets. 7000 bitcoins will not affect bitcoin entirely, but not only 7000 bitcoins that cannot be accessed, but the possibility will also increase when people who have a lot of bitcoins suddenly forget and lose their private reserves. Whether it is true or not, this news can be a lesson for us that every password or private key for digital assets is very important to always remember and back up in other places. Even though I don't have thousands of bitcoins, but my privacy remains well kept and makes backups elsewhere separate and away from online devices.

[TimeTeller]

Sounds like another headline for a news site, no matter if it's true or not, as long as there is another piece of news. I doubt that a person who owns such a large amount of bitcoins could in any way lose or forget their wallet password. In any case, such a number of coins will hardly affect Bitcoin in any way, because the loss is 7000, and there are 21 million of them in total.

Anyone can lose large or small amounts of bitcoin. It all also depends on how to secure the private key or password for a wallet with thousands of bitcoin assets. 7000 bitcoins will not affect bitcoin entirely, but not only 7000 bitcoins that cannot be accessed, but the possibility will also increase when people who have a lot of bitcoins suddenly forget and lose their private reserves. Whether it is true or not, this news can be a lesson for us that every password or private key for digital assets is very important to always remember and back up in other places. Even though I don't have thousands of bitcoins, but my privacy remains well kept and makes backups elsewhere separate and away from online devices.

I believe most people that forgot their passwords with thousands of bitcoins, are those old time holders that never thought that bitcoin will be this big.
So at the time of having those bitcoins, they didn't care much of its value. And only this time that they realized that it is worth something.
Definitely, there are a lot of individuals that own large chunk of bitcoin are now regretting for what they should have done.
Now, for newcomers, this is a good lesson to learn. Whether your portfolio is small or big, make sure you keep your passwords safe and secure.

[Baofeng]

Sounds like another headline for a news site, no matter if it's true or not, as long as there is another piece of news. I doubt that a person who owns such a large amount of bitcoins could in any way lose or forget their wallet password. In any case, such a number of coins will hardly affect Bitcoin in any way, because the loss is 7000, and there are 21 million of them in total.

It will definitely have an impact because bitcoin is cap to 21 million total supply. So in the next 10 years, bitcoin will be so scarce that those remaining will increase in price. But I do agree that this is sensationalised by mainstream or crypto media, perhaps this is a good publicity for Stephen Thomas or the IronKey drive itself.

[pixie85]

I still don't get why would anyone hold their coins in a wallet that allows a finite attempts to log in.
Just keep your secret phrases and the fact you are playing around in the crypto field a secret.

Yes that's pretty stupid. I can think of so many things that could go wrong here like a kid gets a hold of it and starts spamming some stupid things and uses all your attempts or it gets stolen by a thief who simply locks you out trying to break it when he'd need weeks to crack it anyway using sophisticated software if you just used a strong password.

When you can remember a strong password or know how to hide it you can use a normal hardware wallet. If you prefer to use a short, weak password like "mybitcoins" you can use that ironkey thingy, but you'll always risk that if it gets stolen the thief can lock you out.

Also, why would anyone store 200 million dollars without a way to recover the wallet? You can forget password but what about the seed?

[TravelMug]

I still don't get why would anyone hold their coins in a wallet that allows a finite attempts to log in.
Just keep your secret phrases and the fact you are playing around in the crypto field a secret.

You have to remember that this is way back, when bitcoin was still in its infancy and definitely those early bag holders security practice is nascent and probably this is one reason he uses a drive that has finite attempts.

If this happens in 2020, then obviously he could have bought a hardware wallet to put all his bitcoins and then write down the seed. So he is not that stupid, but probably lack the knowledge that time and chooses to hide everything in a usb drive.

[tbct_mt2]

Can any of us verify the person truly lost his password, and his bitcoin? I guess none of us can verify his loss announcement.

In addition, believe me, if you have been in crypto for long enough, please recall your memory, whenever the bitcoin takes-off so much, there were attempts to beat it down. The most common types of news are used for such attempts are: hacks, loss of bitcoin (from loss of private keys, passwords, sudden deaths, etc), sudden new law regulations.

This article is not new and it is a repeatedly warnings for cryptocurrency newbies.
Not your keys, not your coins
Use strong passwords.
Back up your keys, your passwords

Newbies - Read before using exchanges or investing
https://notyourkeys.org/

[crwth]

It hurts to see someone endure something because with only a password, a phrase, a combination of numbers, alphanumeric, whatever it has, lies in front of you millions that could change your life for the better. I think people have forgotten it because they felt it wasn't that big of a deal, and right now, it's a big deal. I hope that people who have lost bitcoins find their way back to them, whether remembering a password or recovering the wallet via seed. I don't know how they have done it before then, but I hope he has kept the private key.

Probably hire a memory expert that could possibly help himself recover his thoughts from wayback.