LHV Bank founder has $470M worth of Ethereum, but lost his private key
Rain Lõhmus, the founder of LHV Bank, mentioned in an interview with Estonian media that he hasn't actively pursued the recovery of his lost funds but is open to compensating anyone who can assist in the retrieval process.
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Rain Lõhmus, the founder of LHV Bank based in Estonia, has been identified as the owner of a substantial stash of 250,000 Ethereum (ETH) tokens. These tokens were acquired during the Ethereum initial coin offering and are currently valued at a staggering $470 million. However, there's a significant challenge: Lõhmus no longer has access to the private keys for this wallet.
This revelation came to light when Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, drew attention to an Ethereum wallet holding approximately $470 million worth of ETH in a tweet from February. In a November 6 update on Twitter, Conor highlighted comments made by Lõhmus during a recent interview, connecting him to the substantial ETH holdings.
Lõhmus admitted to owning a wallet containing 250,000 ETH but has lost the password necessary to access it and has not actively pursued recovery efforts. He expressed his willingness to share the holdings with anyone who can assist in the recovery process, acknowledging that he cannot resolve this issue on his own.
Losing passwords is a common occurrence for him, and he acknowledged that the vulnerability of losing access to funds is a notable drawback of blockchain systems. It is worth noting that Lõhmus initially acquired these Ether tokens for $75,000, with an initial ETH price of around 30 cents.
At the peak price of Ether on November 10, 2021, which was nearly $4,900 per token, the value of Lõhmus' holdings reached $1.22 billion. His wallet continues to boast an impressive gain of 628,757%, and it received $6.5 million worth of airdrops, according to Grogan's post from February.
