Couple does not have access to $ 5.8 million in Ethereum
2 min readYuki and Art Williams, who bought 3,000 in 2014 ETH, they can’t open their crypto wallet. The family claims that the basic JSON file was never downloaded and therefore does not have access to its $ 5.8 million.
They can only look
According to the American media 7news, the family Yuki and Art Williams from Washington DC own 3,000 ETH in their crypto wallet. Unfortunately, the wife and husband can only see them, but they do not have access to the assets. The couple insisted that the JSON file had never been downloaded when the assets were purchased in 2014. Art Williams said:
The instructions were to leave your computer turned on for an hour and a half before the progress bar confirmed the download of the JSON file. Unfortunately for us, this did not happen.”
In terms of today’s prices, the wallet contains $ 5.8 million. Mr. Williams told 7news that the ETH Foundation had promised to solve the problem and send him a JSON backup file. However, the family is still waiting.
On another attempt to access their funds, the couple sent an e-mail to a Swiss-based foundation, showing them proof of purchase and screenshots of the problem. 7news also tried to contact the ETH Foundation, but received no comments.
The last step the family has yet to take is to hire a law firm to start a lawsuit in Switzerland. Lawyers would demand that the ETH Foundation supply the desperate couple with a JSON file during the trial.
A man who lost access to 7,002 BTC
Investing in cryptocurrencies is not risky just because of the volatile nature of the assets. In addition, investors must store and protect their private keys. If someone loses their private keys, it could lead to an irreversible disaster. This is the case of Stefan Thomas and his BTC worth more than $ 223 million.
A San Francisco resident created an educational video in 2011 called “What is BTC?” For another cryptocurrency fan and received 7,002 BTC for his services.
However, Thomas did not pay much attention to BTC, because at that time they had very little value and lost digital keys to the wallet. In the following years, however, the price of BTC exploded and now has 7,002 coins worth around $ 223 million.
A wallet called IronKey allows users to try to guess a password. Thomas has tried to access the funds eight times so far, but they have all failed. If it fails ten times, the wallet will be encrypted forever.
