Estonian Banker's Lost Ethereum Wallet Now Holds Over $1 Billion in ETH

In brief

In 2023 Lõhmus told Estonia’s public radio he lost access and would consider credible recovery help.
On-chain records show only dust transfers, with no outgoing ETH from the labeled wallet.
There have been many other cases of lost crypto wallet passwords or keys.

Two years ago, Estonian banker Rain Lõhmus told Estonia’s public radio he had lost access to a massive stash of Ethereum bought from the 2014 presale.

“It’s no secret that I have a wallet with 250,000 Ethereum units; anyone can calculate for themselves what it’s worth,” Lõhmus said at the time.

He said he would consider credible help to recover it. A specific address was later linked to him by Coinbase product director Conor Groga.

With Ethereum briefly topping $4,700 on Wednesday and surging back to its 2021 highs, Lõhmus’ lost holdings are now valued at roughly $1.2 billion, almost triple their worth back in October 2023, when Ethereum traded around $1,600.

Lõhmus did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

Aside from a number of small transactions sending Ethereum, the wallet remains untouched, according to data from Arkham Intelligence.

Asked how it felt to lose his passwords and keys, Lõhmus recalled a small Bitcoin purchase he locked himself out of and used it to underline self-custody’s weak points.

“I absolutely agree that this is a very weak point of this system, which makes you think that this perfect decentralization has other risks that you don’t usually think about,” he said at the time.

“But it’s very common for me to lose passwords. I went to renew my ID card passwords today; if it were crypto, I’d be in a big crisis again.”

Many others have faced Lõhmus’ predicament. Some have forgotten their passwords, while others have inadvertently discarded their hard drives.

The phenomenon has become so common that, sometime in 2021, a reality TV show was launched for people looking for their lost crypto.