Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer, gained global attention for his story involving 7,002 Bitcoin, a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars today. In 2011, he stored these Bitcoin in a digital wallet and secured the private keys on a small external hard drive called an IronKey. Unfortunately, Thomas lost the paper where he wrote the IronKey's password.

The IronKey allows only ten password attempts before encrypting its contents forever. Thomas used eight unsuccessful attempts and has only two left, making any further attempts extremely risky. Despite the loss, he remains philosophical, seeing it as a lesson in valuing other aspects of life beyond wealth. His story became a cautionary tale about the challenges of securing digital assets in the cryptocurrency world.