Ripple CTO David Schwartz decided to answer the most common questions about the former employee of the company Stephen Thomas, whose story we mentioned in a separate article the day before.
In a post on the Quora platform, Schwartz confirmed Thomas’s version and added that the actual loss of the former Ripple employee may be slightly different than the article in the New York Times stated. We tell you about the situation in detail.
Let’s start with an explanation: Stefan’s story is incredible. He has more than $ 265 million in Bitcoin, but a fan of cryptocurrencies cannot get to them. The problem is that he encrypted the private key from the address with coins – a universal combination that allows access to content – using special software. That is, he does not know the combination itself, and it is, in addition, protected by a password.
At the same time, the program is also radical in nature. If you enter the wrong password ten times, she will encrypt the key permanently. Stefan has entered the wrong combination eight times already. So if the next two attempts are unsuccessful, you can say goodbye to bitcoins.
Unfortunately, he cannot remember the password in any way, since he set it up a long time ago. Due to the peculiarities of the current situation, it has become very popular. One of the discussions was joined by the current head of Ripple, who shared his memories of a colleague.
How to lose money in Bitcoin
Here is one of Schwartz’s quotes on this matter, which he voiced. The replica is given by Cointelegraph.
Stefan Thomas made videos a long time ago and received payment in bitcoins. He jokingly set aside most of the coins – about 6,500 BTC – when the cryptocurrency was worth much less than $ 5. He hoped to withdraw the coins «when they were worth a million dollars.» It was only a few years later that he realized that they were really worth a million dollars.
That is, at one time Thomas received payment in bitcoins and saved this amount. The funny thing is that the crypto fan was really hoping to sell coins for millions of dollars. Alas, he overdid it with safety, so he cannot yet fulfill his dream.
It is noteworthy that Thomas’s story was known in the cryptocurrency community a few years ago. When the amount of lost coins reached $ 2 million, one of the journalists at a conference in San Jose recognized Stefan, as he had previously seen his name on the news. He even brought his regrets for the loss of the coins.
Schwartz is confident that the amount of lost Thomas’ bitcoins by today reaches $ 114 million. And he really only had two attempts left to get the secret combination for his cryptocurrency wallet. Otherwise, the former Ripple representative will permanently lose access to the coins without the possibility of recovery.
David also recalled another story about Thomas, where lost bitcoins again appear. Here is a quote.
When Stefan was developing the Javascript library for Bitcoin, he often tested it with real coins. It was at a time when Bitcoin was worth a tiny fraction of a dollar, so it was creating unspent exits with the UTXO cryptocurrency. He probably created hundreds of such things, none of which he kept keys for because they were just for quick experimentation. Each of them today costs about 38 thousand dollars.
That is, what once cost a penny could now be sold for a lot of money. Alas, Thomas also does not have access to these funds. And this proves once again that the prospects for cryptocurrencies over a long period of time are simply incredible.
Lost bitcoin stories often become very popular even among those who are not directly related to the digital asset industry. For example, we previously wrote about an investor who even offers a reward of $ 72 million for helping to find a lost hard drive with coins.
The moral of the story is clear: the security of your cryptocurrencies needs to be taken responsibly, but not too much. If a user decides to keep coins for several years, he should remember important combinations at least once every few days – be it a hardware wallet or the usual archiving of a private key with a password. Otherwise, money can be lost, including huge amounts.
I would like to believe that Stefan will be able to regain access to the combination. We believe that he clearly deserves this amount, as he early got involved with the cryptocurrency and contributed to its development. Therefore, now it remains to expect positive news from him.
