Some of the world’s largest cryptocurrency whales are locked out of around $1.24 billion worth of digital assets, according to new data shared by blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence on the holdings of the largest whales out there.
The largest cryptocurrency whales, according to the data, have a combined total of $3.5 billion in cryptocurrency, with the list being topped by TRON founder Justin Sun, with $1.1 billion, and including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
Our team created a dashboard of 10 of the richest individuals with crypto holdings tagged on Arkham.The top 5:Justin Sun ($1.1B)Rain Lohmus ($793M – inaccessible)Vitalik Buterin ($782M)Stefan Thomas ($452M – inaccessible)James Fickel ($446M) pic.twitter.com/efOTys9PMo
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) April 15, 2024
According to the data the wallets of Rain Lõhmus, founder of LHV Bank, and Stefan Thomas, a former CTO at Ripple are inaccessible, despite holding a combined $1.24 billion worth of cryptocurrency in them. Given the nature of the cryptocurrency space, the funds are entirely inaccessible.
Lõhmus, reportedly unable to locate his private keys, remains cut off from a stash estimated at $793 million. He allegedly holds 250,000 ETH, accrued during its initial coin offering (ICO) in 2014, and has expressed openness to expert assistance in recovering his lost crypto wealth, offering to share a portion of the funds with whoever manages to recover them.
Ripple’s former CTO, Stefan Thomas, received 7,002 BTC back in 2011 as payment for creating educational content about the flagship cryptocurrency, but soon after lost access to the funds after forgetting the password to an IronKey hard drive that contained the private keys to the wallet.
Last year, cryptocurrency security firm Unciphered offered to break into the hard drivem an offer that was declined. Instead, he opted for the assistance of a cybersecurity firm and an independent researcher, but the case seemingly remains open.
Featured image via Pixabay.