"I have 7002 bitcoins in my wallet, but I forgot the hard drive password."

Stefan Thomas is an American code farmer and an early participant in the Bitcoin market. He told the New York Times reporter that there are 7002 Bitcoins in his wallet, and the wallet private key (similar to a bank card account number + password) is stored in an encrypted hard drive, and there is no other backup. Beginning in September last year, the price of Bitcoin continued to rise, reaching a maximum of 41,950 U.S. dollars, and Thomas' worth once reached 290 million U.S. dollars.

But now, there is a small problem on his road to riches-he forgot the hard disk password... The hard disk has a total of 10 input opportunities, he tried 8 times, and all the common passwords were tried once, but they couldn’t be opened. . "I lay on the bed, tried to sift through the password, then sat in front of the computer and tried to unlock the lock with a new idea, but failed again, and I fell into despair again."

After experiencing such repeated autism, Thomas now has two more attempts, theoretically retaining the possibility of being a billionaire...

If only Bitcoin is stolen, you can still track and monitor it on the chain, and still retain the possibility of recovering the Bitcoin. Losing the private key is even more desperate-they still have the ownership of the hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin, but they have no right to use it.

In the matter of losing the private key, Thomas is not the first victim, and may not be the last.

TOP5: A friend died unexpectedly, 500 bitcoins are unowned

Michael Yang is a blockchain entrepreneur who runs a digital asset exchange in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Once, Michael told a story. One of his friends and partners bought about 500 bitcoins, which are currently worth about 20 million US dollars. Out of trust, the two agreed to hold half of the private key. Unfortunately, his partner later died unexpectedly, taking away the other half's secret key, and no one in the partner's family knew. This friend ushered in the real "life and wealth"-the partner died suddenly and 500 bitcoins were buried.

TOP4: My friend formatted his computer and lost 800 bitcoins

Gabriel Abed is an entrepreneur from Barbados who participated in early Bitcoin investment.

He once held 800 bitcoins and stored the private key carefully in his laptop. I thought that everything could sit back and relax, but no clever hunter could match the pig teammates. In 2011, a colleague of his formatted Abed's notebook, the private key in it disappeared, and more than 30 million US dollars were erased with one click.

TOP3: After 8 years, the USB flash drive is broken, 1000 bitcoins say goodbye

Alex is an early bitcoin miner. In 2009, he mined about 1,000 bitcoins. For safety, he saved a copy of the private key on the computer and the USB flash drive.

A few months later, because of some minor problems with the computer, he erased all the data on the computer, thinking that there was a backup in the USB flash drive anyway. In 2017, he heard that the price of Bitcoin had risen to nearly 20,000 U.S. dollars. He felt in a daze that he was going to become a multi-millionaire. So he turned on the computer and inserted the USB flash drive, but found that the USB flash drive was damaged and eventually broke. The private key is also unknown. Alex never expected that his tens of millions of wealth would have evaporated because of a USB flash drive.

TOP2: Forgot hard disk password, "forced to escrow" 7002 bitcoins

We have already told the story of Stefan Thomas, and it is not miserable. 7002 bitcoins, 290 million US dollars, 1.9 billion yuan, an electronic hard drive, 8 password errors, 2 attempts, although Thomas still retains the possibility of becoming a billionaire, unless a miracle or subconscious reminds him of the hard drive Password, otherwise you can only be "forced to escrow" 7002 Bitcoins.

TOP1: 7500 bitcoins rang when the hard drive was thrown away

On the "Bitcoin Sad List", no one has been able to shake the position of James Howells.

In 2009, Howells had 7,500 bitcoins, and he stored the wallet private key in a mobile hard drive. One day four years later, Howells opened his drawer. There were two hard drives in the drawer, one was a bad empty hard drive, and the other was a hard drive with a private key. Howells originally wanted to throw away the broken hard drive, but didn't check it carefully and threw away the hard drive holding the private key. The hard drive landed, 7,500 bitcoins rang, and 300 million US dollars died on the spot.

Write at the end

As the Bitcoin market surged, more and more investors poured into the digital asset market. The price of digital assets is highly volatile, and ordinary investors should pay attention to investment risks and conduct asset allocation rationally.

At the same time, everyone needs to pay attention to the safekeeping of assets, avoid storing private keys on personal computers to avoid property losses caused by virus attacks, and pay attention to private key backups, and do not strive to become "top people".