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| Bitcoin. © AFP=News1 |
A man who stored bitcoins received 10 years ago in an electronic wallet was in danger of losing 260 billion won because he forgot his password. The Guardian reported on the 12th (local time) that there were only two chances left to enter the password.
Stephan Thomas, a computer programmer working in San Francisco, California, USA, received 7002 bitcoins in exchange for making a video explaining cryptocurrency 10 years ago. At the time, 1 bitcoin was about 2-6 dollars.
He used his’electronic wallet’ to store the bitcoin he received as a reward and then forgot it. As time passed, the value of bitcoin soared, and 1 bitcoin rose to about 34,000 dollars (37.26 million won). On the 7th, 1 Bitcoin exceeded 40,000 dollars.
As of the 13th, 7002 bitcoin amounted to 244 million dollars, about 263 billion won in Korean currency. Thomas had a tremendous fortune. However, the problem is that he forgot the password of the electronic wallet.
Thomas has already entered the wrong password eight times. There are only two remaining chances, and if this is wrong, the device containing his Bitcoin private key automatically encrypts everything. Bitcoin will never be found again.
Thomas told the New York Times (NYT), “I just lie in bed and think of bitcoin,” and “I run forward to the computer again with a new strategy, but it doesn’t work, and I get lost again.”
“The idea of having my bank. The reason there is a bank is because we don’t want to do what the bank does,” he said.
After Thomas’s story became known, an internet security expert suggested that if he gave Thomas 10% of his own bitcoin, he would let him find it within six months.
In addition to Thomas, the Guardian said there were many people who had lost their passwords, but that such a large amount of money is rare.
Cryptocurrency data company Chainallysys estimates that about 20% of the 18.5 million bitcoins mined so far are not accessible to owners due to loss of wallets.
In 2013, an IT company employee accidentally discarded the hard disk drive containing the keys for 7500 bitcoins. At the time, Bitcoin was worth about 4 million pounds (6 billion won), and the Guardian reported that it is more than 250 million dollars (271.4 billion won) now.