A huge cache of more than 50 million euros ($60 million) worth of bitcoin has been seized by prosecutors in Germany from a fraudster.
However the prosecutors are now faced with a peculiar problem – they are unable to unlock the money because the arrested person gas refused to hand over the password to unlock the digital money to the prosecutors.
According to media reports quoting a prosecutor in the Bavarian town of Kempten, a local court has already sentenced the man to jail and he has served his sentence since then. All throughout this time the man kept silent even in the face of repeated attempts by the police to find the password and crack the core so that they are able to access more than 1,700 bitcoin that is stored in the man’s crypto account.
"We asked him but he didn’t say," prosecutor Sebastian Murer told the media on Friday. "Perhaps he doesn’t know."
All digital currencies including bitcoin is stored on software known as a digital wallet which is kept secured by the use of encryption. The decryption key typically to open up the wallet and gain access to the stored bitcoin is a password. It becomes almost impossible for the user to open the wallet to use the virtual currency if he or she forgets to loses the password to the wallet.
A court had ordered the fraudster to more than two years in jail against charges of covertly installing software on other computers to harness their power which was then used for “mining” or producing more bitcoins.
At the time when the person was sentenced and was sent to jail to serve his term, the total value of the bticoins he possessed back then was only a fraction of what they are worth now because the value of bitcoin has increased many folds over the last two years – the time period that the fraudster had spent in jail.
The value of the crypto currency has increased to unimaginable height s particularly over the last one year or so. One bitcoin hit a record high of $42,000 in January. According to crypto currency and blockchain website Coindesk, as on Friday, one bitcoin was valued at $37,577.
Even though the fraudster has denied ot give the password to his bitcoin wallet, the German prosecutors have also ensured that that the man is also unable to open the wallet and access the bitcoins.
(Source:www.moneycontrol.com)
However the prosecutors are now faced with a peculiar problem – they are unable to unlock the money because the arrested person gas refused to hand over the password to unlock the digital money to the prosecutors.
According to media reports quoting a prosecutor in the Bavarian town of Kempten, a local court has already sentenced the man to jail and he has served his sentence since then. All throughout this time the man kept silent even in the face of repeated attempts by the police to find the password and crack the core so that they are able to access more than 1,700 bitcoin that is stored in the man’s crypto account.
"We asked him but he didn’t say," prosecutor Sebastian Murer told the media on Friday. "Perhaps he doesn’t know."
All digital currencies including bitcoin is stored on software known as a digital wallet which is kept secured by the use of encryption. The decryption key typically to open up the wallet and gain access to the stored bitcoin is a password. It becomes almost impossible for the user to open the wallet to use the virtual currency if he or she forgets to loses the password to the wallet.
A court had ordered the fraudster to more than two years in jail against charges of covertly installing software on other computers to harness their power which was then used for “mining” or producing more bitcoins.
At the time when the person was sentenced and was sent to jail to serve his term, the total value of the bticoins he possessed back then was only a fraction of what they are worth now because the value of bitcoin has increased many folds over the last two years – the time period that the fraudster had spent in jail.
The value of the crypto currency has increased to unimaginable height s particularly over the last one year or so. One bitcoin hit a record high of $42,000 in January. According to crypto currency and blockchain website Coindesk, as on Friday, one bitcoin was valued at $37,577.
Even though the fraudster has denied ot give the password to his bitcoin wallet, the German prosecutors have also ensured that that the man is also unable to open the wallet and access the bitcoins.
(Source:www.moneycontrol.com)
