The Most Expensive Password in History

Stephan Thomas, a programmer from San Francisco, could be a multimillionaire today if he could remember one password.

Your password should contain letters, numbers, a beginning, an ending, and a surprise ending, goes the joke. Stephan doesn’t laugh at it.

In 2011, one of Bitcoin’s early adopters gifted Stephan 7,002 bitcoins as a token of gratitude for his animated video, "What is Bitcoin?" The same year, he lost the password to his Bitcoin wallet.

At the time, that didn’t look like much of a loss. Then Bitcoin climbed past tens of thousands of dollars per coin, and by June 2023 Stephan’s wallet was worth more than $173 million. The coins sit on a small IronKey hard drive, and one password stands between him and the money.

The IronKey Dilemma

IronKey is known for strict security. It has no password recovery and allows ten attempts to unlock the data before it encrypts it for good. Stephan had written the password on a piece of paper, and he lost that paper years ago. Trying to recall the code nearly gave him a nervous breakdown.

I was just lying in bed, thinking about the password. Then I’d go to the computer with a new strategy, and with each failure, I became more desperate,

Stephan shared.

After eight failed attempts, he put the hard drive away in a safe place. He wanted to protect his mental health, and he hopes some future technology will open it.

The Hidden Cost of Forgotten Passwords

Stephan isn’t alone. According to a report by Chainalysis, about 20% of the world’s 18.5 million bitcoins sit in wallets whose owners forgot the password. Those coins are estimated at $140 billion.

A decade ago, many Bitcoin buyers didn’t expect the price to climb so far and kept their wallet credentials carelessly. Bitcoin is now a major asset on the financial market. Owners who lost access have had sleepless nights, and more than a few nervous breakdowns.

Modern Solutions to an Age-Old Problem

Back then, nothing protected people in Stephan’s position. Biometric authentication, such as facial recognition, removes the need to remember complex passwords. Cryptocurrency exchanges already require full KYC (Know Your Customer) verification, done manually or automatically.

A Safer Future with Biometrics

Automated remote onboarding, like the systems Biometric.Vision offers, identifies users by biometrics quickly and securely. Users don’t have to memorize passwords, the same way you don’t tell your name to an old friend who knows you by sight.

Biometric.Vision’s technology gives users and businesses secure authentication without passwords. To see how biometric login could work for your own users, visit our website at Biometric.Vision. It describes our products in detail, and our AI-based assistant can answer your questions in chat.

As for Stephan…

Let’s wish him luck. He still has two attempts left, with $173 million riding on them.