LHV Bank Founder Has Lost Private Key to ETH Stash Worth $470 Million

cryptonews.com:

Rain Lõhmus, founder of Estonia-based LHV Bank, has lost the private key to his crypto stash consisting of 250,000 ETH, worth approximately $470 million.

The stash was acquired during the Ethereum Initial Coin Offering (ICO), Conor Grogan, a director at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, revealed in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter).

He noted that the wallet had remained untouched since the genesis of the Ethereum blockchain.

“One mystery solved: This address (which now holds $450M of crypto) belongs to Rain Lohmus, founder of LHV Bank,” Grogan wrote.

“Unfortunately he lost his keys and can’t access these 100s of millions. If you can help him recover them somehow, he’s willing to split them with you.”

One mystery solved: This address (which now holds $450M of crypto) belongs to Rain Lohmus, founder of LHV Bank

Unfortunately he lost his keys and can't access these 100s of millions. If you can help him recover them somehow, he's willing to split them with you https://t.co/wYLAU9gKzb pic.twitter.com/0A1nIjFSyn

— Conor (@jconorgrogan) November 6, 2023

In a late October interview with ERR, Lõhmus confirmed that it was “no secret” he owned a wallet containing 250,000 ETH.

However, he disclosed that he had lost the password to the wallet and had not made significant efforts to recover it.

Expressing his willingness to collaborate with anyone who could assist in recovering the lost keys, Lõhmus stated, “I can’t solve this alone; if someone thinks they can, I’ll take all offers.”

The LHV Bank founder acknowledged that losing passwords was a recurrent issue for him, emphasizing that the inability to access funds was a vulnerability of blockchain systems.

It is worth noting that Lõhmus’ initial investment in Ether amounted to a mere