Don't Forget Your Password: You Could Lose $220 Million

[engine]

There's an interesting story on the New York Times about a gentleman that has forgotten his password to his Ironkey, which has the private keys to a digital wallet which has over 7,000 bitcoin, and at current values is worth around $220 million.

He's not alone...

Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 percent — currently worth around $140 billion — appear to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets,

Oh dear!

[nytimes.com...]

[lucy24]

Can’t help thinking that in decades past, the occasional Swiss bank account must have met the same fate.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Tragic in itself, but also the electricity consumption for coins that are now effectively useless.

[NickMNS]

In 2011, ... , he was given the 7,002 Bitcoin ...
That year, he lost the digital keys to the wallet holding the Bitcoin.

Since then, every time Bitcoin swings wildly to a new records another newspaper writes an article about him.
Here is wired article from 2011
[wired.com...]

And this guy not just average Joe. He has based his whole career on Bitcoin, so this seems to be more of a publicity stunt that actual fact.

The only news worthy story will be in 10+ years when quantum computers will be readily available and the account will be accessed by cracking the encryption. It will spawn a new era of Treasure hunters. Mind you if the encryption is crackable then Bitcoin will be worthless.

Edit: Take note of the "Peak Bitcoin Value" on the main chart in the wired article. Lol.

[engine]

Really, well, if he is gaming people, it's tough luck.

Here's another one, but this may be stupidity.

A man who threw away a laptop hard drive containing bitcoin he believes is now worth about £210m wants his council to let him search for it in landfill.

[bbc.co.uk...]
He should not have thrown it away into landfill in the first place, it should have gone for recycling.

[lucy24]

He should not have thrown it away into landfill in the first place, it should have gone for recycling.

Aside from that aspect (where I live, anything with a motherboard is required by law to be recycled, presumably meaning that it’s shipped off to Malaysia and becomes someone else’s problem) ... who the heck simply disposes of a HD with valid information on it? Either take it out of the computer and toss it in a drawer, or dismantle it and destroy the disk so it can’t be read by the next clever landfill-crawler.

[engine]

Exactly.
It was irresponsible.

The chances of finding a laptop hard drive in thousands of tons of landfill are pretty much zero.

[bwnbwn]

What's so interesting is 20% of the total amount of bitcons is lost. over a billion lost many more out there

[lammert]

It is not only Bitcoins that get lost over time. With the switch to the Euro, almost half a billion Euro worth of Dutch Guilders were not converted to the new currency. Other countries have faced the same problem.

If I had to choose, I would put my money on finding the hard disk in the landfill. Managed landfills are built in layers and segments, so if he knows the date he threw the hard drive away, it should be possible to determine an estimated location and depth.