He still has two more password guesses left before the $840 million deletes itself forever

In 2011, programmer Stefan Thomas was paid for “What is Bitcoin?” educational video in Bitcoinand 7002 BTC it has since become such a wealth that people build whole security teams around it. The private keys sitting on an encrypted IronKey USB drive protected by a password that Thomas once wrote down and then lost. The IronKey is designed to permanently lock and delete its contents after 10 failed attempts, and Thomas has already burned through eight. He brought in outside help, from digital forensics company Naxo to security researcher Chris Tarnowski, but the money was still stuck on the last two guesses.

Digital wealth stuck in 2011

from time to time cryptoThe promise of self-sovereignty collides with something very human: a forgotten password. Programmer Stefan Thomas learned this lesson the hard way, earning 7,002 Bitcoin in 2011 for creating “What is Bitcoin?” training video as described in latest report. with Bitcoin trading around $111,000, the stock was valued at about $777 million.

Thomas did what many early believers did: he hid the keys for later. He kept the wallet private keys to an encrypted USB drive and wrote the password on a piece of paper and then lost it. The money is still there, just out of reach, a reminder that “being your own bank” can also mean “being your own help desk.”

IronKey: Non-negotiable security

The device at the heart of this is the IronKey, designed to keep secrets even from determined attackers. This strength is due to a hard limitation: after 10 incorrect attempts to enter the password, the drive is permanently blocked and its contents are deleted. Thomas has already burned through 8 attempts, leaving only 2 guesses left before the door closes for good, according to accounts summarized in recent coverage.

Not even the manufacturer offered a comforting escape hatch. A Kingston spokesperson put it bluntly: “There is no backup password or alternative method other than the original user-set password to retrieve data.” The IronKey was designed to resist extraction, and in this story the design goal is to do exactly what it says on the box.

Call the experts and watch the rates rise

How Bitcointhe price has gone up, the numbers surrounding Thomas’ lockout have become surreal. In 2020, his net worth was estimated to be around $91 million, by October 2023, around $235 million, and at the end of 2025, around $253 million. The last two password attempts effectively turned into a high-stakes decision tree: guess or keep waiting.

Thomas explored recovery efforts, including abandoning Unciphered because he already had verbal agreements with two other teams, Naxo and security researcher Chris Tarnowski, known for chip-level reverse engineering, as shown in detailed statement. Tarnowski told WIRED that his involvement was the only call in 2023, saying, “I want Stefan to cough up some money up front.” Thomas summed up the pace at Thinking 2023 Crypto interview: “When you’re dealing with that kind of money, everything lasts forever.” As of late 2025, the IronKey was still stored in a Swiss vault, with no confirmed recovery as of mid-2026.