Stefan Thomas lost the password to an encrypted USB drive holding 7,002 bitcoins. One team of hackers believes they can unlock it—if they can get Thomas to let them.
This story seems off.
Unciphered has shown they can crack these drives, at least to Wired allegedly, but Stefan (owner) refuses to even talk to them and see proof, because he approached two other entities a year ago? One of the hired experts even said he’s not working on it unless Stefan pays him a salary upfront to work on it, and the other being Naxos labs which has <10 employees and didnt comment. Stefan says he doesnt mind if Unciphered is subcontracted to do the work, so why doesnt the one expert just hire Unciphered, verify their claims and give them the majority of the cut, while he gets a small finders fee of 6-7 figures, as this expert wanted a salary to quote “pay his bills”, so he clearly would be happy with no work and a nice pay day, while Unciphered would walk away with millions for their work.
Like with most of crypto, I think there is more going on than what is being portrayed.
It makes me wonder if Stefan has already obtained access, and doesn’t want all of the downsides that come with the world knowing. Many a lottery winner has talked about the downsides of publicly winning loads of money, and would prefer to be anonymous if they could have. There are risks to personal security, to your friendships, and loads of anxiety. By gaining access in secret, Stefan would essentially be an anonymous lottery winner, and get to skip some of that.
Of course this is Bitcoin. If all of those coins are truly in a single wallet, then one could find it on the blockchain and monitor it for transactions. I wonder if anyone has tried finding his wallet. If the coins are broken up into multiple wallets, then never mind. But a single wallet with 7001 coins for 10+ years, that is going to stand out.
The article says a source claims he has made money from other crypto ventures, and Google’s totally not accurate results are saying his net worth is $500m, but even if that was true, why sit on a 50% increase of net wealth that is highly volatile? Also I’d imagine his contract with the two experts he contacted would have NDAs and prevent any discussion of the client, but then again the one solo expert he hired spoke openly to Wired. Finally, if you had $200 million in bitcoin, would you actually leave it there? I absolutely wouldnt.
Also if he already had access to the coins, why bother with this charade? Nobody knew his story till he made it public, he allegedly only reached out to the 2 experts last year, and spoke about it on a video podcast earlier this year, and now briefly to Wired. If he gained access why not put the story to rest with a lie that a third expert killed the device and he’s done with the stress of it all and moving on.
This story seems off. Unciphered has shown they can crack these drives, at least to Wired allegedly, but Stefan (owner) refuses to even talk to them and see proof, because he approached two other entities a year ago? One of the hired experts even said he’s not working on it unless Stefan pays him a salary upfront to work on it, and the other being Naxos labs which has <10 employees and didnt comment. Stefan says he doesnt mind if Unciphered is subcontracted to do the work, so why doesnt the one expert just hire Unciphered, verify their claims and give them the majority of the cut, while he gets a small finders fee of 6-7 figures, as this expert wanted a salary to quote “pay his bills”, so he clearly would be happy with no work and a nice pay day, while Unciphered would walk away with millions for their work.
Like with most of crypto, I think there is more going on than what is being portrayed.
It makes me wonder if Stefan has already obtained access, and doesn’t want all of the downsides that come with the world knowing. Many a lottery winner has talked about the downsides of publicly winning loads of money, and would prefer to be anonymous if they could have. There are risks to personal security, to your friendships, and loads of anxiety. By gaining access in secret, Stefan would essentially be an anonymous lottery winner, and get to skip some of that.
Of course this is Bitcoin. If all of those coins are truly in a single wallet, then one could find it on the blockchain and monitor it for transactions. I wonder if anyone has tried finding his wallet. If the coins are broken up into multiple wallets, then never mind. But a single wallet with 7001 coins for 10+ years, that is going to stand out.
The article says a source claims he has made money from other crypto ventures, and Google’s totally not accurate results are saying his net worth is $500m, but even if that was true, why sit on a 50% increase of net wealth that is highly volatile? Also I’d imagine his contract with the two experts he contacted would have NDAs and prevent any discussion of the client, but then again the one solo expert he hired spoke openly to Wired. Finally, if you had $200 million in bitcoin, would you actually leave it there? I absolutely wouldnt.
Also if he already had access to the coins, why bother with this charade? Nobody knew his story till he made it public, he allegedly only reached out to the 2 experts last year, and spoke about it on a video podcast earlier this year, and now briefly to Wired. If he gained access why not put the story to rest with a lie that a third expert killed the device and he’s done with the stress of it all and moving on.
The whole thing is off.
We have very high inflation right now, It’s a bad time to be holding cash.
There are investments other than cash and BTC lol
Sure and the guy has them, most wealthy investors diversify.
They probably want a significant sum of the money, which is conveniently left out of the article.
I mean if it’s even true,fair deal
say…Has to be done IN my presence,get it in a legal contract
Crack it…you get 100 btc…all partys would walk away a winner
The article actually said the conversation never got that far: