Ex-Ripple Ceo Loses $ 240 Million Bitcoin Key

Former Ripple CEO Stefan Thomas made a fortune in Bitcoin, but it is possible that he will never be able to touch it, as he lost the key to the digital wallet that stores $ 240 million worth of Bitcoin 

When memory plays trick on you

The German-American programmer reported that he had 7002 Bitcoin (BTC) securely stored on a crypto wallet. Everything would have been fine, and you could have been happy, but there was a small chance: Stefan lost the password to him. The memory is no longer as good as it used to be, and the unfortunate man could not remember it. If he can’t remember it, then he can say goodbye to his BTC fortune.

Thomas said he had previously safely stored the secret word on a piece of paper, but lost it. Bitcoins securely stored on IronKey would be valued at more than $ 240 million, given the current market price.

Thomas shared his grief with the New York Times, and said that he had only two last attempts to enter the password before his cryptocurrency state becomes forever inaccessible, and the content becomes irrevocable. The programmer has already used up 8 out of 10 attempts allocated by IronKey when the user forgets their password. Thomas said: “I just lay in bed and thought about it. Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, but it didn’t work, and I would get desperate again.”

Be your own crypto bank

The misfortune ofThomas with forgotten keys is not uncommon. According to cryptocurrency data analyst Chainalysis, about 20 percent of the 18.5 million Bitcoins currently in circulation are lost forever. They are stored in wallets whose owners have forgotten the digital key and therefore can no longer access them.

This demonstrates that with Bitcoin, the privilege of managing your own funds and eliminating a third-party intermediary is also costly: the technical details that a banking institution would normally monitor and consider, such as how to recover a password, are not secured by digital assets such as Bitcoin.

Satoshi Nakamoto’s idea of Bitcoin is that no central bank or government can regulate the cryptocurrency. Anyone in the world can own Bitcoins simply by becoming the owner of a digital wallet, which will ensure financial accessibility. But what happens when people fail to be their own bank?

Thomas had a revelation in his desperate moments, and he said, “This whole idea of being your own bank is just absurd! Let me put it this way: Do you make your own shoes? The reason we have banks is because we don’t want to do all the things that banks do”.

Losing the digital keys was enough to dissuade well-known investors from owning crypto assets. Famous gold bull Peter Schiff is one of those who gave up Bitcoin after losing access to his Bitcoin wallet many years ago. Fortunately for Thomas, he also owns Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies stored on other platforms.