A decade ago bitcoin commanded moderate prices, and many investors have now realised they hold an enviable fortune in their wallets after a spectacular surge in bitcoin prices now. They are trying to unlock their wallets by using the passwords. A lot of investors have been made rich in a short time.

However. many people have been locked out of their fortunes, an outcome of lost or forgotten keys. They are unable to cash in on their digital wealth.

Stefan Thomas, as reported by the NYT, is a German-born programmer living in San Francisco. He has a fortune of $220 million in his wallet. However, he has to figure out his password. They allow 10 attempts, and he has tried eight times. He has only two guesses left. The password will unlock for a small hard drive, known as IronKey. It contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds 7,002 Bitcoin. Thomas has lost the paper on which he scribbled the password of his IronKey.

Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 per cent appear to be lost or are in stranded wallets. Its worth is around $140 billion.

A cryptocurrency data firm, Chainanalysis Wallet Recovery Services, which helps to recover lost digital keys have received increasing number of requests.

There are some who have created or mined Bitcoin, and are trying to get back into these wallets.