United States investor Stefan Thomas has lost the slip of paper he had scribbled his password on to unlock his 7,002 Bitcoin - now worth an estimated £180million

The computer programmer who lost his Bitcoin password has just two guesses left before he is locked out of his account forever.

Stefan Thomas has lost the slip of paper with the information to unlock his 7,002 digital coins, which yesterday were worth a reported £180million.

The tech worker told the New York Times he cannot remember the crucial code to a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, to unlock his account and cash in.

German-born Mr Thomas, who now lives in San Francisco, said if he doesn't get the password right within the next two tries, he will lose the fortune forever.
The crypto-currency's value has soared wildly since then.

Mr Thomas' Bitcoin were this week worth around a reported £25,637.95 each.
The computer programmer said he had written down his password a decade ago - but now he cannot find it.

The IronKey only gives users ten tries at a password to access their digital wallet before it locks an account forever.
“I would just lay in bed and think about it,” Mr. Thomas told the NYT. “Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”

He said he plans to put his IronKey in a secure facility until a better way is found to crack it.

Mr Thomas among many Bitcoin investors who have found themselves ready to cash in but locked out of their accounts.

Many who invested in the cryptocurrency a decade ago when a single coin was worth a matter of hundreds of pounds have found themselves sitting on a fortune.

Bitcoin has no central management investors can contact to ask for help.

Expert services have since had to be launched to crack locked accounts as many would-be millionaires find they have lost the key to accessing their cryptocurrencies.

Wallet Recovery Services told the NYT it was fielding around 70 requests a day from people who were struggling to access their accounts.

Another Bitcoin investor, entrepreneur Brad Yasar, told the newspaper he still had several desktop computers containing thousands of Bitcoin he had 'mined' during the early days of the crytocurrency.

However he lost his passwords years ago, and has subsequently hidden the computer hard drives in vaccumm-sealed bag.

“Through the years I would say I have spent hundreds of hours trying to get back into these wallets,” Mr Yasar said.

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.


https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/man-just-two-password-guesses-23308887

village people at work

He should call on some Russian or Chinese hackers to do the job.

Whoever created the Ironkey wallet also has a way to bypass it. My advice, look for whoever it is or whoever they are, and lay your complains. If that doesn't work, then your best bet is to locate a darkweb hacker and negotiate percentage with the hacker. Afterall, na oyibo create pencil and still create eraser.

Yawa

I can help him out for a 50-50 cut if anyone can reach out to him.

kinglee007:
Whoever created the Ironkey wallet also has a way to bypass it. My advice, look for whoever it is or whoever they are, and lay your complains. If that doesn't work, then your best bet is to locate a darkweb hacker and negotiate percentage with the hacker. Afterall, na oyibo create pencil and still create eraser.

The creators don't store the wallet passwords bro. It's not as easy as it seem

TheSuperb:


The creators don't store the wallet passwords bro. It's not as easy as it seem

Well, it kinda seems easy if you see it from my point of view. You see, the creators are the admin of the account. They obviously have the power to reset the account and allow him have access to his account. Except it's more technical than i think though.

He is d creator of his own wallet password.i can crack it for 70-30%.