Closed on the outside
With the recent highs of the Bitcoin price, an unfortunate phenomenon appears: people who have accumulated large fortunes in cryptocurrency realize that they have long since lost their passwords for their encrypted digital wallets.
Take Stefan Thomas, a San Francisco programmer, who said New York Times that he has 7,002 hidden Bitcoin – currently worth about $ 236 million, almost a quarter of a billion dollars – but that he has no idea how to access it and can only guess two more passwords before it is blocked forever.
Even leaving aside the long-term prospects for crypto, the key message of these horror stories is that taking digital finances into your own hands is a huge risk if you can’t manage your passwords.
Crypto starts
The problem of buying or exploiting cryptocurrencies and then forgetting how to access them is so widespread that there is a whole growing industry for cybersecurity experts who can help potential rich people access their fortunes after – they forgot their passwords.
“Even sophisticated investors have been completely unable to do any kind of private key management,” said Diogo Monica, co-founder of cryptographic security startup Anchorage. NOW.
Major Turnoff
For Thomas and others in his situation, having millions of dollars just in hand has soured the whole idea of decentralized currency like Bitcoin, according to NOW.
“This whole idea of being my own bank – let me say, ‘Do you make your own shoes?’ Thomas told them NOW. “The reason we have banks is that we don’t want to deal with all those things that banks do.”
READ MORE: Lost passwords block millionaires from their Bitcoin fortunes [The New York Times]
More about crypto: Crypto Thief stole $ 54 million guessing weak passwords