- $4, Stefan Thomas had 7,002 bitcoins stored on a secure hard drive.
- The German programmer now says "time heals all wounds" and that he is at peace, reports $4
- Thomas told previously told $4 he had been left questioning his self-worth.
German-born programmer Stefan Thomas $4 after a lost password rendered his
$4, the secure hard drive, on which 7,002 bitcoins were stored, was an IronKey device. It gives owners 10 chances to guess their password before encrypting the contents. Thomas only had two attempts left to guess correctly before this situation occurred.
$4 initially reported Thomas' plight and quoted him as saying: "I would just lay in bed and think about it: Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn't work, and I would be desperate again."
A potential loss of that magnitude makes "you sort of question your own self-worth," he added. On Saturday, the stash was worth about $220 million, but as bitcoin prices surged this year, it had been valued above $240 million.
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After his story went viral, he gave another interview to $4, telling the station "time heals all wounds" and that he had made peace with his potential loss.
He added: "It was actually a really big milestone in my life where, like, I sort of realized how I was going to define my self-worth going forward. It wasn't going to be about how much money I have in my bank account."
Thomas, a programmer who now lives in San Francisco, is one of several bitcoin owners who have been locked out of their wallets. $4
In another case, a Welsh man says he says he threw away a hard drive loaded with 7,500 bitcoin in 2013. $4
$4, despite European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde calls for more regulation the day before. On Friday,$4$4 at the end of a week of volatile trading.