2/2 © Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A representation of the virtual currency Bitcoin and small toy figures are placed on the motherboard of the computer 2/2
By John O’Donnell FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German prosecutors have seized more than 50 million euros ($ 60 million) in bitcoins from a scammer. There’s just one problem: they can’t unlock the money because you don’t give them the password. The man was sentenced to prison and has served his sentence ever since, maintaining his silence the entire time as police made repeated unsuccessful efforts to crack the code to access more than 1,700 bitcoins, said a prosecutor in the Bavarian city of Kempten. “We asked him, but he didn’t say,” prosecutor Sebastian Murer told Reuters on Friday. “Maybe he doesn’t know.” It is stored in software known as a digital wallet that is protected by encryption. A password is used as a decryption key to open the wallet and access the bitcoin. When a password is lost, the user cannot open the wallet. The fraudster had been sentenced to more than two years in prison for covertly installing software on other computers to harness its power to “mine” or produce bitcoins. When he went behind bars, his stash of bitcoin would have been worth a fraction of its current value. The price of bitcoin has surged over the past year, hitting a record high of $ 42,000 in January. It was trading at $ 37,577 on Friday, according to the cryptocurrency and blockchain website Coindesk. However, prosecutors have ensured that the man cannot access the generosity. ($ 1 = 0.8349 euros)
