German programmer Stefan Thomas sits on a massive fortune estimated at $800 million stored on a small USB stick, with only two final attempts to decrypt a Bitcoin wallet containing 7,002 digital coins. Losing the password put him at risk of losing his fortune forever, in one of the strangest dilemmas in the history of cryptocurrencies.
In 2011, Stefan Thomas, then living in San Francisco, released a short video titled "What is Bitcoin?" explaining the emerging currency to the public. His reward was 7,002 Bitcoins, worth no more than $7,000 at the time, but today they are worth nearly $800 million.
Thomas transferred the coins to a digital wallet secured with an IronKey S200, a USB key known for its strict encryption. But his life's tragedy began when he lost the paper on which he wrote the password. The device only allows ten attempts, and it has used up eight of those, leaving only two more before it shuts down and erases everything.
Security Breach
In late 2023, cybersecurity firm Unciphered announced it had found a way to circumvent the IronKey device's robust security, allowing unlimited password attempts. The team described their success as a "moon landing," after they were able to reset the security mechanism using sophisticated techniques including microscopy and error injection.
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