Following on from Robyn's article last week on digital assets, I had an interesting conversation over the weekend and was told the story of Stefan Thomas.
Mr Thomas has 2 password attempts left before he is locked out of his digital vault. This digital vault holds around £220 million worth of Bitcoin. There is no "forgotten your password?" link to follow and no way of accessing the vault without it.
It seems he is not alone, with around 20% of Bitcoin being held in "lost" or inaccessible wallets.
As a Private Client lawyer dealing with deceased estates this fills me with dread. Imagine finding a note alerting you to the deceased's Bitcoin ownership but with no way of accessing it.
We, as Private Client practitioners, need to seriously rethink the questions we ask when dealing with estate planning and running through client's assets. Not just asking what digital assets they have but how these would be accessed after their death.
Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/technology/bitcoin-passwords-wallets-fortunes.html