Have you ever thought about what it would mean to lose access to half a billion dollars because of a password? Well, this is the true story of Stefan Thomas.

Stefan is a German programmer who moved to San Francisco and in 2011 received 7,002 Bitcoins as payment for making an animated video. At the time, no one imagined that this would turn into a fortune. To keep everything secure, he stored the coins on an IronKey, one of the most armored encrypted USB devices out there.

Here comes the problem: Stefan wrote down the password on a piece of paper. And guess what? He lost the paper.

The IronKey has pretty brutal security — it only allows 10 password attempts before self-destructing completely. Stefan Thomas has already used 8 attempts. Only 2 chances remain before his wallet turns to dust forever.

To give you an idea of the scale, that wallet contains approximately 530 million dollars in Bitcoin. No margin for error. No backup. Just 2 attempts.

It’s one of those stories that makes you rethink everything about crypto security. Stefan Thomas has become practically a synonym for this brutal lesson: sometimes the most secure device isn’t enough if you can’t remember or keep a simple password safe.