By Solomon Odunayo
According to a report published by The New York Times, Stefan Thomas, the former chief technical officer at Ripple, has been battling to access his Bitcoin wallet that contains BTC worth millions of dollars.
The report pointed out that Thomas cannot access his IronKey hardware wallet with 7,002 BTC that are worth around $231 million at the time of publishing.
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Stefan Thomas Has Only Two Attempts Left
From inception, Bitcoin, as well as other cryptocurrencies, have seen the feature that makes people be their own bank as the major selling point. Crypto enthusiasts see this quality as a means to keep their hard-earned money away from untrusted centralized authorities.
As it gives users privileges, it also require a high level of responsibility. Due to Thomas’s current situation, he now thinks the risk of carrying out the bank’s responsibility does not worth it.
Thomas said:
“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.”
According to the report, the coins were gifted to the former Ripple CTO, Stefan Thomas, in 2011 for making an educational video about Bitcoin (BTC). Thomas lost his seed phrase that is necessary for unlocking his crypto riches the same year.
After eight failed attempts to gain access to his wallet, Thomas now has two more attempts left before the coins get encrypted forever:
“I would just lay in bed and think about it. Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again…I got to a point where I said to myself, ‘Let it be in the past, just for your own mental health.”
The fact remains that there are lots of Bitcoin millionaires that have been locked out of their wealth for misplacing private keys. Indeed, we are determined to be our own bank, but does losing $231 million worth such a responsibility?