In the early 2010s, as Bitcoin was still little more than a curiosity among technologists, Stefan Thomas was among its evangelists. A German-born programmer trained at the Technical University of Munich, he created one of the first viral explainer videos, “What is Bitcoin?,” and launched WeUseCoins.com, a site that introduced thousands of newcomers to the promise of digital currency.
For his efforts, he was paid in Bitcoin—7,002 tokens, then worth only a few thousand dollars. Today, that stash is valued at roughly $777 million. But for Thomas, who went on to serve as chief technology officer at Ripple and co-invent the Interledger Protocol, the coins are little more than a ghostly reminder of how innovation and irony often collide.
A Password With Only Two Chances Left
Thomas stored the Bitcoins on an IronKey, a hardware drive designed for military-grade security. The device allows only 10 password attempts before it permanently encrypts its contents. Thomas has tried eight times.
Two attempts remain. One wrong guess, then another, and the fortune is gone forever.
“I would just lie in bed and think about it,” Thomas told reporters in earlier interviews, describing nights haunted by the memory of discarded notes and forgotten backups. Over time, he said, the stress gave way to resignation.
A Tempting Offer to Unlock the Treasure
Recently, a cybersecurity firm called Unciphered claimed it had discovered a way to sidestep IronKey’s destructive defense mechanism—enabling trillions of password attempts without wiping the drive. The company offered to help.
But Thomas declined. Years ago, he had struck an informal agreement with two separate recovery teams, promising them a share if they succeeded. Accepting Unciphered’s offer would mean betraying those commitments. “It’s not just about the money,” he suggested. “It’s about honoring my word.”
The Broader Lesson in Digital Fragility
Thomas’s predicament is not unique. According to Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics firm, nearly 20 percent of all Bitcoin in circulation—valued at more than $140 billion—may be lost or inaccessible due to forgotten passwords or misplaced keys.
The paradox is stark: the very systems designed to ensure security have made human error catastrophic. In the analog world, a lost key can be copied, a forgotten PIN reset. In the blockchain universe, there is no customer service hotline, no master key.
For Thomas, that reality has become a defining feature of his career. He now leads Coil, a web-monetization startup, but his story remains a cautionary tale often invoked at cryptocurrency conferences: the man who once taught the world about Bitcoin but cannot access his own.
An End Without Closure
Whether the coins will ever be recovered remains uncertain. For now, they sit locked away, silently appreciating and depreciating with every market swing.
Thomas has learned to live with the loss, he says, but the lesson reverberates across the digital economy: wealth may be built on cryptography, but its survival still depends on something as fragile as memory.
