And now, the German police are getting a practical crash course on what the phrase means after a convicted fraudster refused to grant them access to a stash of bitcoins worth $60 million.
Fraudster refuses to hand-over password
Reuters reported that German authorities seized more than $60 million in bitcoins from a convicted criminal but the only problem is that he won’t hand over the password to them.
A prosecutor in Kempten said the fraudster was tried, sentenced, and sent to jail where he served his term, but did not reveal his password to the authorities, who have failed on numerous occasions to get the code that grants them access to the seized bitcoins.
“We asked but he didn’t say. Perhaps he doesn’t know,” said Prosecutor Sebastian Murer.
The fraudster served more than 2 years in jail for crypto-jacking, an act of secretly installing software on someone else’s computer without their consent and use it to mine cryptocurrencies.
Not your keys, not your bitcoins
The man’s refusal to hand over the keys to his digital wallets could mean that he doesn’t want to lose his holdings.
Or it could mean that he lost the password. Many people are losing access to their bitcoins.
A UK engineer recently offered $72 million to a town council if he is granted permission to search for a lost hard-drive containing 7,500 bitcoins in waste sites.
The man mistakenly threw away his bitcoin-filled hard-drive and discovered his costly mistake later. The engineer’s mistake is worsened by their soaring prices of bitcoins which reflects how much he may lose or find.
The refusal by the convicted criminal to reveal the password leads to one important question: can authorities really seize bitcoins if they can’t access them?
Lost bitcoins
The New York Times reported last month that around 20% - worth around $140 billion - of the existing bitcoins are lost or in stranded wallets.
It was recently reported that Stefan Thomas, the CEO of micropayment streaming service Coil has forgotten the password to his IronKey hardware wallet containing 7,500 bitcoins (more than $300 million at current market value).
More bitcoins will likely be lost in the future and this could have an influence on the price and adoption of the digital asset.
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