A FAMILY fear their $6 million Ethereum cryptocurrency fortune could be lost forever after tragically losing everything in a house fire.
Yuki and Art Williams bought 3,000 Ethereum coins in 2014 during a pre-sale from the Ethereum Foundation before a horror blaze ripped through their family home in Washington, DC.
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The shocking fire destroyed their house – leaving the family even more desperate in their lengthy fight to get a key data file for their Ethereum account.
“We lost everything we had to a house fire and had been on a long path to recovery since then,” said Yukiko.
“We are in dire need of some stability.”
And with their struggles, the family are now in dire need of the multi million fortune and have redoubled their efforts to try get back the cash – deciding to take their fight public.
The couple said a password was created for the wallet, but the correct JSON file – which acts as a private key to open a crypto wallet – was never given to them.
The family can see the whopping $5.9 million fortune in the wallet – but they can’t access it.
After years of battling to access the fortune, the family have now launched a fundraiser to cover the costs of their legal campaign.
“We can see the contents of our Ethereum wallet, which is currently valued at more than $5.9 million,” they said.
“Unfortunately, we have no means to access the coins in our wallet in spite of having the CoinBase time-stamped receipt and character password, notwithstanding all the other efforts we have put in.”
LEGAL BATTLE
The couple claim the Ethereum Foundation was supposed to send over the JSON file – which would have given them access to the wallet – but the files “refused to respond” as they were meant to.
“Ethereum reassured us that they had a backup wallet file which they would email to us,” they said.
“Unfortunately, no one from their end followed up… and the email never came through.”
Yuki and Art said it has become harder to reach the Ethereum Foundation “as the project became successful and attracted millions of cryptocurrency enthusiasts”.
The couple have now begged for help to raise $250,000 to take their legal fight to the International Chamber Of Commerce.
“The last few years have been utterly challenging for our family,” they said.
“My family and I have been through a lot. Just a few years ago, we lost everything we had to a house fire and had been on a long path to recovery since then.
“We are in dire need of some stability and still want to do a lot more for our community’s less privileged people.”
Speaking to 7 News DC, Art said: “All they have to do is send me that JSON file.”
But the Ethereum Foundation’s legal team reportedly said: “We continue to believe that Ethereum has no liability for lost wallets, passwords, and private key.”
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