The founder of Estonia-based LHV Bank, Rain Lõhmus, has been revealed as the owner of a huge stash of 250,000 Ether (eth) purchased during the ethereum initial coin offering, which is now worth a whopping $470 million.
There’s only one problem: he no longer has the keys.
In February, Coinbase head Conor Grogan highlighted an ethereum whale wallet containing about $470 million in eth, intact since the genesis of the blockchain.
In a November 6 update on X (Twitter), Conor highlighted Lõhmus’ comments in a recent interview that now link him to the $470 million in trapped eth.
“A mystery solved,” wrote Grogan, who shared an excerpt from an Oct. 31 ERR News report. report It is a previous Vikerradio interview with Lõhmus.
A mystery solved: this address (now containing $450 million in cryptocurrency) belongs to Rain Lohmus, founder of LHV Bank
Unfortunately he lost his keys and cannot access these hundreds of millions. If you can help him get them back somehow, he is willing to split them with you. https://t.co/wYLAU9gKzb pic.twitter.com/0A1nIjFSyn
-Conor (@jconorgrogan) November 6, 2023
“Unfortunately he lost his keys and cannot access these hundreds of millions. If you can help him recover them in any way, he is willing to share them with you,” Grogan added.
According to the ERR report, Lõhmus said it was “no secret” that he owned a wallet with 250,000 eth, to which he lost the password and did not make much effort to recover it.
“I can’t solve this alone; If someone believes they can, I will accept all offers,” Lõhmus said.
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“It’s very common for me to lose passwords,” he said, adding that losing access to funds was a “weak point” of blockchain systems.
In total, Lõhmus’ Ether purchase was $75,000, as the price of eth at launch was around 30 cents.
At Ether’s November 10, 2021 price peak of nearly $4,900, Lõhmus’ stagnant stash was worth $1.22 billion.
Lõhmus’ wallet today still has an impressive 628,757% gain, and according to Grogan’s February X post, he had $6.5 million in airdrops to boot.
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