Recently, Live Bitcoin News published a story about Stefan Thomas, a San Francisco resident originally from Germany that had only two tries left to access his locked bitcoin stash. Here is an update for all who may have been worried about his situation.
Stefan Thomas: Finding Peace Through Loss
Thomas has all his digital funds stored in a special kind of wallet known as Iron Key. The wallet is built to be stronger than standard wallets and less susceptible to fraud and theft. The big clincher is that a person has about ten separate tries to enter their password and login information. If, after those ten tries, the data proves false, Iron Key encrypts all the data held within and becomes lost forever.
Thomas, at the time of writing, has tried eight times to gain access to the funds in question. While he still has two tries left, he says that he cannot remember the password associated with the wallet, and that he has “made peace” with the huge financial losses he’s enduring.
This is a big step for the programmer considering – as stated in a recent interview – that he has as many as 7,002 bitcoin units stored within this device. That would be worth around $250 million today. Sadly, he has not been able to remember his password or access his funds since 2012. Thus, nine years have passed with no success, and it appears Thomas is finally okay with the situation.
In his interview, he comments:
Time heals all wounds… There were a couple weeks where I was just desperate. I don’t have any other word to describe it. You sort of question your own self-worth. What kind of person loses something that important?
Thomas, at one stage, became so eager to try and gain his money back that he sought assistance from people across the globe through the internet. He says that the suggestions they offered were sometimes as unique as the situation itself. He mentions:
One person suggested, ‘have you tried the word password?’ Some people have recommended various mediums, psychics, prophets that I could talk to. Some people are suggesting nootropic memory-enhancing drugs.
Eventually, Thomas decided that his “self-worth” couldn’t be established through financial means, and he had to look at the situation from a different angle. He also says that he’s not a huge fan of being his own bank. He states that there are financial institutions in the world to do these kinds of tasks for people, and that the moment individuals seek to take on responsibilities they cannot handle, trouble will likely stir.
We Are Not Meant to Be Our Own Financiers
He says:
This whole idea of being your own bank – let me put it this way. Do you make your own shoes? The reason we have banks is that we don’t want to deal with all those things that banks do.
