BlockBeats News, July 17th, Programmer Stefan Thomas currently has only two more password attempts left to unlock an IronKey encrypted USB flash drive containing 7,002 bitcoins' private key. If the wrong password is entered ten times consecutively, the device will be permanently locked and data will be erased, and Thomas has already used up 8 attempts.

The bitcoins were received in 2011 when Thomas created an educational video called "What is Bitcoin?" and received 7,002 BTC as a reward. Based on the current price of approximately $11,100 per BTC, this asset is valued at around $770.7 million.

Thomas had previously stored the wallet's private key on the encrypted USB drive and written down the password on paper, but later lost the password. Although the bitcoins still exist in the on-chain address, the funds are currently in an inaccessible state due to the inability to access the private key.

The IronKey USB drive is designed with high-strength encryption, and after ten consecutive incorrect password attempts, it will trigger a permanent lock mechanism. The manufacturer, Kingston, stated that besides the original password set by the user, there are no backup passwords or other recovery methods.

As the BTC price continues to rise, the value of this locked asset keeps increasing. Thomas has sought help from various parties, including digital forensics company Naxo and security researcher Chris Tarnovsky, but so far, there has been no successful recovery.