{"id":75528,"date":"2026-07-17T05:33:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/he-still-has-two-password-guesses-left-before-840-million-deletes-itself-forever\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T05:33:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T05:33:48","slug":"he-still-has-two-password-guesses-left-before-840-million-deletes-itself-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/he-still-has-two-password-guesses-left-before-840-million-deletes-itself-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"He Still Has Two Password Guesses Left Before $840 Million Deletes Itself Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"@container mb-[25px] rounded-sm overflow-clip py-0.5 pr-0.5 pl-2.5 bg-success-100\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-m overflow-clip rounded-[6px] !bg-success-10 p-3 @[420px]:p-m\">\n<h2 class=\"m-0 flex items-center gap-s text-[19px] !text-[#1c1c1c] md:text-[20px]\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"16\" height=\"10\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 10\" fill=\"none\" class=\"shrink-0 text-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M1 1.5h14\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><path d=\"M1 8.5h10\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><\/svg><span>Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"m-0 flex list-none flex-col gap-m pl-0\">\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Stefan Thomas has 2 IronKey attempts left to recover 7,002 BTC worth about $777M in 2026.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Kingston says no recovery exists after 10 failed tries, highlighting Bitcoin self-custody risks.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Naxo and Chris Tarnovsky pursued recovery, but no breakthrough was confirmed by mid-2026.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In 2011, programmer Stefan Thomas took payment for a \u201cWhat is <span>Bitcoin<\/span>?\u201d educational video in <span>Bitcoin<\/span>, and the 7,002 <span>BTC<\/span> he received has since become the kind of fortune people build entire security teams around. The <span>private keys<\/span> sit on an IronKey encrypted USB drive, protected by a password Thomas once wrote down and then lost. IronKey is built to permanently lock and delete its contents after 10 wrong attempts, and Thomas has already burned eight. He has brought in outside help, from digital forensics firm Naxo to security researcher Chris Tarnovsky, but the money is still stuck behind two final guesses.<\/p>\n<h2>A digital fortune, stuck in 2011<\/h2>\n<p>Every so often, <span>crypto<\/span>\u2019s promise of self-sovereignty collides with something painfully human: a forgotten password. Programmer Stefan Thomas learned that lesson the hard way after earning 7,002 <span>Bitcoin<\/span> in 2011 for making a \u201cWhat is <span>Bitcoin<\/span>?\u201d educational video, as described in <a href=\"https:\/\/gulfnews.com\/technology\/fin-tech\/bitcoin-meet-stefan-thomas-who-lost-777-million-to-a-forgotten-password-1.500248631\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">most recent reporting<\/a>. With <span>Bitcoin<\/span> trading around $111,000, that stash has been valued at roughly $777 million.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas did what plenty of early believers did: he tucked the keys away for later. He stored the wallet\u2019s <span>private keys<\/span> on an encrypted USB drive and wrote the password on a piece of paper, then lost it. The money is still there, just out of reach, a reminder that \u201cbe your own bank\u201d can also mean \u201cbe your own help desk.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The IronKey: security that doesn\u2019t negotiate<\/h2>\n<p>The device at the center of this is an IronKey, built to keep secrets even from determined attackers. That toughness comes with a hard limit: after 10 incorrect password attempts, the drive permanently locks and deletes its contents. Thomas has already burned 8 tries, leaving only 2 guesses before the door closes for good, per accounts summarized in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unilad.com\/news\/money\/bitcoin-password-lost-solution-716485-20240221\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Even the manufacturer has offered no comforting escape hatch. A Kingston spokesperson put it bluntly: \u201cThere is no backup password or alternative method, other than the original password that was set up by the user to retrieve the data.\u201d The IronKey was designed to resist extraction, and in this story, that design goal is doing exactly what it says on the box.<\/p>\n<h2>Calling in specialists, and watching the stakes climb<\/h2>\n<p>As <span>Bitcoin<\/span>\u2019s price climbed, the numbers attached to Thomas\u2019s lockout became surreal. His holdings were estimated at about $91 million in 2020, then roughly $235 million by October 2023, with another account putting it near $253 million in late 2025. The last two password attempts have effectively become a high-stakes decision tree: guess, or keep waiting.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas has explored recovery efforts, including turning down Unciphered because he already had verbal agreements with two other teams, Naxo and security researcher Chris Tarnovsky, known for chip-level reverse engineering, as outlined in <a href=\"https:\/\/trakx.io\/resources\/insights\/stefan-thomas-locked-out-of-7002-btc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a detailed rundown<\/a>. Tarnovsky told WIRED his involvement amounted to a single call in 2023, saying, \u201cI want Stefan to cough up some money up front.\u201d Thomas summed up the pace in a 2023 Thinking <span>Crypto<\/span> interview: \u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with so much money, everything takes forever.\u201d As of late 2025, the IronKey was still stored in a Swiss vault, and by mid-2026 there\u2019s been no confirmed recovery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/he-still-has-two-password-guesses-left-before-840-million-deletes-itself-forever-49201\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways Stefan Thomas has 2 IronKey attempts left to recover 7,002 BTC worth about $777M in 2026. Kingston says no recovery exists after 10 failed tries, highlighting Bitcoin self-custody risks. Naxo and Chris Tarnovsky pursued recovery, but no breakthrough was confirmed by mid-2026. In 2011, programmer Stefan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":75529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75528"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}