There aren’t many good ways to lose $ 220 million, but this is New York Times This article focuses on the terrible ones in particular. I’ve lost millions of dollars in Bitcoin because I forgot my digital wallet password.

Stephen Thomas’ 7,002 Bitcoin (equivalent to about $ 220 million) is said to be trapped in the IronKey hard drive. NYTNathaniel Popper. The problem is that he can’t remember his password. Due to IronKey’s strict security protocol, password attempts will fail twice and you will lose your password permanently.Yes Possibility to pay someone to crack a drive, But Thomas will have to have the time and money to make it happen.

It’s a dark comedy scenario, and Popper’s story applies to all cryptocurrency classics to help explain it. There are references to the volatile nature of Bitcoin’s value and the mysterious creators of currencies, but what the article surprisingly reveals is how common it is to lose Bitcoin.

The other two were chosen for Thomas’s tragic story, which is surprisingly common. Popper writes that about 20 percent (about $ 140 billion) of the 18.5 million Bitcoins currently in existence are lost in inaccessible wallets.

Other high-value wallets have been locked out in the past, ranging in content from $ 30,000 to $ 300,000, but Thomas says how long this issue persists among Bitcoin users and how expensive it is. It reminds me of Taka. The safe and decentralized nature of Bitcoin is great — until it clashes with simple human oblivion.

You can read the whole story here to understand how much Schadenfreude Bitcoin continues to generate.