The San Francisco-based programmer Stefan Thomas made headlines recently because he forgot the password to unlock a small hard drive called the IronKey, which holds the keys to a digital wallet containing 7,002 Bitcoins worth $220 million. Two copies of this bitcoin password were saved on hard drives that failed due to software updates and this USB stick—IronKey—where the third copy was saved is password protected.
Thomas lost the paper where he wrote down the password for his IronKey years ago. The device is so designed that after 10 incorrect attempts, it seizes up and encrypts its contents forever. Only two attempts are now left to gain access, and Thomas can’t remember the password! Certainly, Thomas is not the only one who is in this situation due to password autarchy. A recent New York Times article, citing the cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis, has said: “Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoins, around 20%—currently worth around $140 billion—appear to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets.”