Recovery firm proposes cracking former Ripple CTO's $244M Bitcoin hard drive

A institution is petitioning erstwhile Ripple main exertion serviceman Stefan Thomas for a hard thrust containing much than 7,000 Bitcoin (BTC) that helium has been incapable to entree for years.

In an Oct. 25 unfastened letter, crypto betterment steadfast Unciphered offered to unlock an IronKey hard thrust belonging to Thomas containing 7,002 BTC — astir $244 cardinal astatine the clip of publication. The erstwhile Ripple CTO forgot the information to entree the drive, designed to erase its information if an idiosyncratic enters the incorrect password 10 times. So far, the German-born programmer has utilized 8 retired of his 10 attempts.

According to Unciphered, its teams developed a method to ace the hardware and entree the BTC keys safely stored for years. Technology mag Wired reported connected Oct. 25 that the institution was capable to entree the information connected a akin IronKey aft “200 trillion tries” — seemingly bypassing the 10-attempt regularisation connected the drive.

“Though determination are ever caveats, this is not theoretical,” said Unciphered. “We tin bash it; we’ve done it galore times earlier [...] And we tin bash it again. You don’t person to instrumentality our connection for it [...] we would beryllium blessed to show it connected arsenic galore samples successful a enactment arsenic it takes for you (and everyone) to consciousness assured earlier moving forward.”

This is an unfastened missive to Stefan Thomas (@justmoon) - we would emotion to assistance you get backmost into your IronKey.https://t.co/zhfu41b9jn pic.twitter.com/1hYg3h79BF

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Unciphered CEO Eric Michaud said the institution accessed the information successful the IronKey from the Wired study by extracting immoderate of the drive’s accusation and utilizing offline servers, giving its squad much than 1 wound astatine the pome astatine guessing the password. He declined to accidental what the steadfast would inquire for successful instrumentality from Thomas but added Unciphered had created a “sustainable business” helping radical retrieve crypto.

“We're prepared if Stefan doesn’t privation to enactment with us, but we’re hopeful," said Michaud. "We already person a concern that is increasing and we'll beryllium present erstwhile he’s ready."

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There are galore highly publicized stories similar Thomas’ involving betterment oregon users incapable to find their keys for 1 crushed oregon another. In 2021, a Redditor claimed to person regained access to 127 BTC aft much than 10 years, uncovering the backstage keys connected an aged computer. In 2013, British nationalist James Howells mistakenly discarded a hard thrust containing astir 7,500 BTC — helium has made aggregate attempts to find and retrieve the thrust successful a landfill without success.

Estimates from 2022 suggested that users could person mislaid access to astir 20% of Bitcoin’s supply. This amounted to billions of dollars worthy of the cryptocurrency.

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