₦airaland Forum

90 Billion Naira.

Stefan Thomas has just two chances left to get his hands on his $240m (£175m) fortune.

Thomas is a San Francisco-based computer programmer, and a decade ago he was given 7,002 bitcoins as a reward for making a video explaining how the cryptocurrency works.

At the time he was paid, they were worth $2-$6 each. He stashed them away in his “digital wallet” and forgot about them.

Now each bitcoin is worth $34,000, and the contents of his wallet are valued at $240m. But Thomas has forgotten the password that will unlock his fortune.

German-born Thomas has already entered the wrong password eight times, and if he guesses wrong two more times his hard drive, which contains his private keys to the bitcoin, will be encrypted – and he’ll never see the money.


The price of bitcoin hit more than $40,000 last week, having doubled in less than a month. It has since fallen back but it is still up by more than 700% since the pandemic was first declared in March last year, rising from about $5,000.



Thomas said he has tried his eight most frequently used passwords to access his IronKey hard drive, but all turned out to be wrong. The device auto-encrypts all contents after the 10th inaccurate guess.

“I would just lay in bed and think about it,” Thomas told the New York Times. “Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”

Thomas said the experience has understandably put him off cryptocurrencies. “This whole idea of being your own bank – let me put it this way, do you make your own shoes?” he said. “The reason we have banks is that we don’t want to deal with all those things that banks do.”

Following the publicity of Thomas’s plight, Alex Stamos, an internet security expert at Stanford Internet Observatory, said he could crack the password within six months if Thomas gave him a 10% cut of the digital fortune.

“Um, for $220m in locked-up bitcoin, you don’t make 10 password guesses but take it to professionals to buy 20 IronKeys and spend six months finding a side-channel or uncapping,” he said on Twitter. “I’ll make it happen for 10%. Call me.”

Cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis said it estimated that about 20% of the existing 18.5m bitcoins appears to be lost or stranded in inaccessible wallets.

In 2013, Welsh IT worker James Howells accidentally threw out a hard drive containing the keys to 7,500 bitcoins. At the time, the lost bitcoins were worth about £4m. Now, they would be worth more than $250m.


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/12/in-bits-the-programmer-locked-out-of-his-130m-bitcoin-account

5G.

HenryThegreat1:
Make we hear word.
Are these ones moving around?

There is something in the hearts of your likes that never learns until it is a victim.

Pastor Chris claims it is 5G.

GOFRONT:
This corona can sha sabi beat around the bush......Go and hit the main target but hell NO!!!.....It keeps hitting the wrong darling daddy...

Not long before it gets there.

We would all send condolences.

Fahdiga:
All the blame should go to Muhammadu Buhari who have turned Nigeria to the underworld capital of the world with his ill advised policies. poverty is on the rise daily. Nigerians have never had it this bad

Are you talking from experience?

lagdmark:
Industrial heaven for constructing watin 200level Maritime students dey use for project in Norway.

Lies.

SalamRushdie:
No doubt he is a very powerful man in the world we can't see

Trump is his apprentice.

Any day he messes up, pia, with fan belt.

SalamRushdie:
George Soros pressing buttons ..Trump always said he was stepping in very powerful toes and he was right

George Soros is greater than Trump the loser.

SalamRushdie:
Hahahaaha now that Satanic left and their media agents can't find a single footage of where Trump asked his supporters to occupy the capitol they have resorted to their typical "imaginary insider" ..I pity the the low IQ fools falling for leftist games and rhetoric..Now everyone has stopped talking of the massive electoral fraud and talking of an imaginary insurection... Ask yourself if CNN had a single footage of Trump telling his supporters to attack the capitol ,don't you think CNN would be it playing every minute by now ?

Deutsche Bank and Signature Bank will 'sever ties with Trump and his organization' following election loss and MAGA riots - but POTUS still owes them $300 million in loans

studentofTruth:
1. Go to Twitter and check the story of @rotimi_4g


https://www.nairaland.com/6244881/twitter-influencer-rotimi-4g-shared#95912844

2. Zlatan's case: Was Zlatan not paraded before investigation? His freedom was public because he's a celebrity. Many innocent ordinary Nigerians have their image tarnished forever!

The first case has not been decided in court, he was only given administrative bail, besides there's no evidence he was paraded.

Molahnelson:
So a freelancer now and a webmaster is now a Yahoo Yahoo in Nigeria

I see

No wonder we are descending to the 10th world country

Name one webmaster who was paraded and eventually freed or convicted by the court.

Straight to the waste bin.

Then the police kidnapped them.

Corruption is part of the Haemoglobin make up of the average Nigerian.

This is the kind of situation that requires video recording, giving them a few days to repent and when they don't you apply your EndSARS best practice.

Let's hear her defence.

Could she have taken a machete with her to the venue?

Could they have been attacked whilst she was spared?

Only a fool with a death wish believes social media shouldn't be regulated.

Who is this impostor?

Can't he just catch Coronavirus?

raphy:
No be our tax money them still use do am .Na the person wey de in charge them go sack no be me .

Why will I be happy like say gain anything our country is already useless stay there de look.

Old rail Na bush for floor mills apapa n ijora

And because you were poor yesterday does that mean you'll be poor forever?

Dedetwo:
You definitely must be a participant to know.

She wasn't my type.

BeLookingIDIOT:
It's going to be like 7 out of 10 in the South East

I don't know about that but Nnamdi Kanu is an example.

Alams go resurrect oh.

Sometimes it appears as if the reporters gloat with the way they present their headline.

Aconomist:
We have cement companies in Nigeria: Dangote. We have civil engineering companies: Julius Berger/Chagoury.

And we have been producing steel for generations.

She was a woman of easy virtue.

When I said his mother was being serviced by an itinerant trailer driver some thought I was just talking.