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Title: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: flatfly on January 31, 2013, 10:31:53 PM I may be wrong, but I believe the following rule allows identification of lost coins with pretty high confidence.
Any address with 10,000+ BTC that was existing before July 2011, has had zero outgoing transactions since then, and has received less than 5 coins since then. Q: Why does this formula manage to distinguish lost coins from coins in cold storage? And why July 2011? A: That's the time of the great market crash and start of the plunge to near zero. Any large holders would have surely sold at that time or in the following weeks. Applying this rule, we find that a LOT of the richest addresses are actually lost forever (hopefully this list doesn't have any mistakes): 79957.042 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF 50000.041 1P3S1grZYmcqYDuaEDVDYobJ5Fx85E9fE9 50000.041 1DEpjpftLbsGiCJvJDp2F2quVRnymV8U5Q 40000.041 1cXNTyXj4xPGopfYZNY5xfSM1EPJJvBZV 40000.041 12HddUDLhRP2F8JjpKYeKaDxxt5wUvx5nq 40000.041 16Ls6azc76ixc9Ny7AB5ZPPq6oiEL9XwXy 38000.041 18Hsgq92AUB1PYLU6MUMQXiwdebaDRo9oQ 31000.041 12ib7dApVFvg82TXKycWBNpN8kFyiAN1dr 28150.041 12tkqA9xSoowkzoERHMWNKsTey55YEBqkv 23249.041 12fZ2HxkLjG9zn1u44XYsFFYKHM4A2zCea 13050.000 1KX8EPDcziwbGaC7oDHDuKE9SfLWMmmbZy 12950.000 1MHdm5XZMrfoZFoUktEaGhYevmdiXoc4x4 12800.000 1B1wPLyrJ831sg1D8hnZLBG7SejXbqMMrH 10770.515 1F34duy2eeMz5mSrvFepVzy7Y1rBsnAyWC 10689.034 1FpqQnKQCgDkJFMC94JL8FpRyHTZ3uRVZ1 10009.251 1f1miYFQWTzdLiCBxtHHnNiW7WAWPUccr 10000.000 18k9tin39LKegFzHe8rxSgvJXDpuMriGJq 10000.000 1JtpgqCf3SSeCeYWEDJjkfYFH7Ruhy4Vp1 10000.000 1DJSiWg6Ci6DLmxZFjVNBKn9CcahLFx5gS 10000.000 1Du2jAQsBQnkkVZkN4oqC46tS78k7WMkVq 10000.000 1CPaziTqeEixPoSFtJxu74uDGbpEAotZom 10000.000 1ucXXZQSEf4zny2HRwAQKtVpkLPTUKRtt 10000.000 1BAFWQhH9pNkz3mZDQ1tWrtKkSHVCkc3fV 10000.000 12dUggmXPYsPVHaHr1DoW5J6bb6gvh4yZq 10000.000 1EyArywoLEhFto6uKWMxA9QKXJWLTNghsz 10000.000 14YK4mzJGo5NKkNnmVJeuEAQftLt795Gec 10000.000 1Le6MkiTvkorvC1JwYXzQUSfqA3ebzGW7N 10000.000 1P1iThxBH542Gmk1kZNXyji4E4iwpvSbrt 10000.000 1KbrSKrT3GeEruTuuYYUSQ35JwKbrAWJYm 10000.000 16TPVCpvtJ6FkV5xNKBp35aMo4BWFGxiEY 10000.000 145YHsQU7HMzkRnD5SBSuFAzQgCYnAnLkN 10000.000 12tLs9c9RsALt4ockxa1hB4iTCTSmxj2me Total: 562,625 BTC Do you agree with this reasoning? I'm not saying it's a perfect definition, but it should be reasonably accurate and with very little risk of overestimating lost coins. It is also easy to prove me wrong. If you control any of the above addresses, just spend a satoshi from them. That will be more convincing than any argument, plus you will remain anonymous! Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: jerfelix on January 31, 2013, 10:34:43 PM Given that all my holdings met that criteria until yesterday, I would have to disagree.
Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: flatfly on January 31, 2013, 10:37:23 PM Given that all my holdings met that criteria until yesterday, I would have to disagree. Really? BTW I forgot to add, "address received most of its coins before July 2011." Edited now. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: DannyHamilton on January 31, 2013, 10:45:40 PM I'd disargee.
Furthermore, your suggested method of proving ownership is faulty as well. Many of these may be "paper" wallets or "brain" wallets using addresses whose private key has never been used on a computer connected to the network. To send a Satoshi, the private key would have to be imported and used to sign the transaction, and the public key would be made known reducing the security of the cold storage. To regain the original security, the owner would have to start over creating a whole new offline cold storage. More hassle than anyone will want to go to just to prove you wrong. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: giszmo on January 31, 2013, 10:47:01 PM I solo-mined a block in June 2011 and didn't move it until last week when I moved it to a different wallet. Shitty guess I would say. <tin-foil-hat>The fed mined their millions not to crash the market further when a bubble bursts but to prepare for a post-dollar age.</tin-foil-hat>
Actually I never lost faith in Bitcoin going far up and beyond of its history record, so low rates were times for buying, not selling. Any equally bullish person would just not touch their old coins. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: jerfelix on January 31, 2013, 10:51:02 PM I agree with giszmo.
During the crash, the smart money was buying, not selling. I sure as hell didn't sell, and I'm certainly not the smart money! Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: casascius on January 31, 2013, 10:55:14 PM I would be willing to bet that there are a few individuals out there that probably have a crapload of bitcoins, who are also steady hands and don't have a need / desire / interest in crashing the market... especially if these coins are deemed savings rather than winnings.
Imagine Satoshi has a million bitcoins, which I assume is entirely possible. If you're Satoshi and could clear the orderbook with 100,000 of them, and have 900,000 sitting in offline wallets, regardless of your plans or greed, those 900,000 won't get touched because there's no need to touch them other than to stupidly throw them away to slippage. A long time ago in early 2011 I griped about how early adopters must have a ton of bitcoins and are going to wreak havoc on us all. If that still is the case, I'm worried much less, as they've shown themselves to be steady hands, and no matter when they liquidate, they'll probably do it slowly, and at a time where the market is able and willing and interested in absorbing more circulating bitcoins. Now that I've been doing bitcoins this long, I'm arguably an early adopter. I have a small well-secured stash (nothing like any of these addresses though!) and I don't care what happens. I will hold them to the moon or to the ground just for the pride of having participated in something so revolutionary, but even then, they're savings to me. If over time they become something big, well that'll be great. So, anyway though, I'm not counting on those bitcoins being lost. Kudos to whoever's got em. They'll move, eventually, I think, and responsibly, I hope. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: lassdas on January 31, 2013, 11:05:51 PM Given that all my holdings met that criteria until yesterday, I would have to disagree. Really? BTW I forgot to add, "address received most of its coins before July 2011." Edited now. Most (90+%) of my coins fall into that category, - mined/received in 2010/2011 - zero outgoing transactions - zero incoming transactions I didn't care much about "the great market crash" and didn't sell a single coin at that time, as I mentioned somewhere else, it was $1 (or below), went up to $30 and then "crashed" to $2, so it was still twice as much as before, no reason to panic-sell. I'm in for the long term, not to get freaky when some bubbles pop. ;) Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: Fuzzy on January 31, 2013, 11:27:27 PM Do you agree with this reasoning? I'm not saying it's a perfect definition, but it should be reasonably accurate and with very little risk of overestimating lost coins. It is also easy to prove me wrong. If you control any of the above addresses, just spend a satoshi from them. That will be more convincing than any argument, plus you will remain anonymous! I would say that most of the lost coins are the ones that were mined when Bitcoins were still seen as funny money, before they were $1 each. Using this data (https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?hl=en&hl=en&key=0AmcTCtjBoRWUdHVRMHpqWUJValI1RlZiaEtCT1RrQmc&single=true&gid=0&output=html) that was at the beginning of 2011. So see what total you get if you only count addresses that have had no incoming/outgoing transactions since 2010. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: Peter Todd on January 31, 2013, 11:56:49 PM As an example 157i5gK7iN4bNAN39Ahuoiq6Tx5TaQukTE (http://blockchain.info/address/157i5gK7iN4bNAN39Ahuoiq6Tx5TaQukTE) is owned by Hal, who has publicly confirmed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128042.msg1400661#msg1400661) that he still has access to the private key. Last substantial transaction, June 2011.
The reality is we just don't know for sure how many lost coins are out there. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: misterbigg on January 31, 2013, 11:57:51 PM Do you agree with this reasoning? FALSE. There are people like me who would accumulate coins and not sell them at any cost. At best, you can put an upper limit on the number of lost coins. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: jerfelix on February 04, 2013, 10:33:08 PM Do you agree with this reasoning? At best, you can put an upper limit on the number of lost coins. 21 Million. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: SgtSpike on February 04, 2013, 10:37:20 PM I may be wrong, but I believe the following rule allows identification of lost coins with pretty high confidence. That'll be completely off, I guarantee it.Any address that was existing before July 2011, has had zero outgoing transactions since then, and has received less than 5 coins since then. Q: Why does this formula manage to distinguish lost coins from coins in cold storage? And why July 2011? A: That's the time of the great market crash and start of the plunge to near zero. Any large holders would have surely sold at that time or in the following weeks. Applying this rule, we find that a LOT of the richest addresses are actually lost forever (hopefully this list doesn't have any mistakes): 79957.042 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF 50000.041 1P3S1grZYmcqYDuaEDVDYobJ5Fx85E9fE9 50000.041 1DEpjpftLbsGiCJvJDp2F2quVRnymV8U5Q 40000.041 1cXNTyXj4xPGopfYZNY5xfSM1EPJJvBZV 40000.041 12HddUDLhRP2F8JjpKYeKaDxxt5wUvx5nq 40000.041 16Ls6azc76ixc9Ny7AB5ZPPq6oiEL9XwXy 38058.041 1FngtAcZsLfK89MNe7TqzyqVtSype8TiVD 38000.041 18Hsgq92AUB1PYLU6MUMQXiwdebaDRo9oQ 35254.503 19Gt9VKmmyMpMHEv6dkf8ddwmwddoSoJ8w 31000.041 12ib7dApVFvg82TXKycWBNpN8kFyiAN1dr 28150.041 12tkqA9xSoowkzoERHMWNKsTey55YEBqkv 23249.041 12fZ2HxkLjG9zn1u44XYsFFYKHM4A2zCea 19400.041 1PeizMg76Cf96nUQrYg8xuoZWLQozU5zGW 13050.000 1KX8EPDcziwbGaC7oDHDuKE9SfLWMmmbZy 12950.000 1MHdm5XZMrfoZFoUktEaGhYevmdiXoc4x4 12800.000 1B1wPLyrJ831sg1D8hnZLBG7SejXbqMMrH 11867.800 19n1JqKDnoqcc34HA3fdgzNxczic6Hu5Pi 10770.515 1F34duy2eeMz5mSrvFepVzy7Y1rBsnAyWC 10689.034 1FpqQnKQCgDkJFMC94JL8FpRyHTZ3uRVZ1 10009.251 1f1miYFQWTzdLiCBxtHHnNiW7WAWPUccr 10000.000 18k9tin39LKegFzHe8rxSgvJXDpuMriGJq 10000.000 1JtpgqCf3SSeCeYWEDJjkfYFH7Ruhy4Vp1 10000.000 1DJSiWg6Ci6DLmxZFjVNBKn9CcahLFx5gS 10000.000 1Du2jAQsBQnkkVZkN4oqC46tS78k7WMkVq 10000.000 1CPaziTqeEixPoSFtJxu74uDGbpEAotZom 10000.000 1ucXXZQSEf4zny2HRwAQKtVpkLPTUKRtt 10000.000 1BAFWQhH9pNkz3mZDQ1tWrtKkSHVCkc3fV 10000.000 12dUggmXPYsPVHaHr1DoW5J6bb6gvh4yZq 10000.000 1EyArywoLEhFto6uKWMxA9QKXJWLTNghsz 10000.000 14YK4mzJGo5NKkNnmVJeuEAQftLt795Gec 10000.000 1Le6MkiTvkorvC1JwYXzQUSfqA3ebzGW7N 10000.000 1P1iThxBH542Gmk1kZNXyji4E4iwpvSbrt 10000.000 1KbrSKrT3GeEruTuuYYUSQ35JwKbrAWJYm 10000.000 16TPVCpvtJ6FkV5xNKBp35aMo4BWFGxiEY 10000.000 145YHsQU7HMzkRnD5SBSuFAzQgCYnAnLkN 10000.000 12tLs9c9RsALt4ockxa1hB4iTCTSmxj2me Total: 755,205 BTC Do you agree with this reasoning? I'm not saying it's a perfect definition, but it should be reasonably accurate and with very little risk of overestimating lost coins. It is also easy to prove me wrong. If you control any of the above addresses, just spend a satoshi from them. That will be more convincing than any argument, plus you will remain anonymous! What I'm more curious about is why many of those have a balance with .041 attached to the end. Why? Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: BIGMERVE on February 04, 2013, 10:42:26 PM Maybe they're all owned by the same person?
Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: Qoheleth on February 05, 2013, 12:05:37 AM That'll be completely off, I guarantee it. Tips.What I'm more curious about is why many of those have a balance with .041 attached to the end. Why? Somewhere around here is a thread of the addresses with the biggest balances on the network. A while ago, someone sent a small tip (0.031337 BTC) to each of them. If you look at the history for those addresses, you'll see that the .041 comes from that tip, plus another tip a few months later. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: flatfly on February 05, 2013, 07:28:42 AM Hmm... I am not willing to modify my list and criteria just yet - at least for LARGE (10,000btc +) holdings!
Now, I do agree that most of the points made so far do apply to smaller holdings, but seriously, do you really believe anyone with USD 200,000+ invested in such a volatile thing as bitcoin will let it lose 90% of its peak value and not use any kind of stoploss rule? After all, isn't this one of the basic rules of investing? Anyway, let's try a different, slightly more aggressive approach: I will tag all of the above coins as LOST 4EVER and will only untag an address if its owner ever spends a coin from it OR just simply ADDS 50btc or more to it (which might be preferable from a security point of view as it does not require any cold storage private key to be used.) I know this is a controversial statement (and please keep bringing good arguments), but until I see hard evidence, I still strongly believe that my list is 95%+ correct. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: DannyHamilton on February 05, 2013, 08:16:11 AM . . . I still strongly believe that my list is 95%+ correct. You are welcome to believe anything you like. It doesn't make you right, but you don't seem to care about that.Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: SgtSpike on February 05, 2013, 04:14:46 PM Hmm... I am not willing to modify my list and criteria just yet - at least for LARGE (10,000btc +) holdings! Tag and untag your list however you like. It's your list. That doesn't mean anyone else will take it seriously though...Now, I do agree that most of the points made so far do apply to smaller holdings, but seriously, do you really believe anyone with USD 200,000+ invested in such a volatile thing as bitcoin will let it lose 90% of its peak value and not use any kind of stoploss rule? After all, isn't this one of the basic rules of investing? Anyway, let's try a different, slightly more aggressive approach: I will tag all of the above coins as LOST 4EVER and will only untag an address if its owner ever spends a coin from it OR just simply ADDS 50btc or more to it (which might be preferable from a security point of view as it does not require any cold storage private key to be used.) I know this is a controversial statement (and please keep bringing good arguments), but until I see hard evidence, I still strongly believe that my list is 95%+ correct. This is like saying anyone who didn't sell their Apple holdings when it was up to $10/share was completely out of their mind. Obviously, some people sold, and some people held, all depending on what they believed the future would hold. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: kokojie on February 05, 2013, 04:17:51 PM Hmm... I am not willing to modify my list and criteria just yet - at least for LARGE (10,000btc +) holdings! Now, I do agree that most of the points made so far do apply to smaller holdings, but seriously, do you really believe anyone with USD 200,000+ invested in such a volatile thing as bitcoin will let it lose 90% of its peak value and not use any kind of stoploss rule? After all, isn't this one of the basic rules of investing? Anyway, let's try a different, slightly more aggressive approach: I will tag all of the above coins as LOST 4EVER and will only untag an address if its owner ever spends a coin from it OR just simply ADDS 50btc or more to it (which might be preferable from a security point of view as it does not require any cold storage private key to be used.) I know this is a controversial statement (and please keep bringing good arguments), but until I see hard evidence, I still strongly believe that my list is 95%+ correct. Problem with your theory is, those people that got in that early to obtain that much coins, are most likely not a short term speculator, but a true believer, and won't let go of the coins easily. Many of them are probably not doing any speculative trading at all. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: marhjan on February 05, 2013, 05:11:29 PM Now, I do agree that most of the points made so far do apply to smaller holdings, but seriously, do you really believe anyone with USD 200,000+ invested in such a volatile thing as bitcoin will let it lose 90% of its peak value and not use any kind of stoploss rule? After all, isn't this one of the basic rules of investing? This is precisely the flaw in your reasoning. The people with large 10k+ btc holdings mined them back in 2010 and early 2011 and are NOT investors per se. Would any professional investor allow the loss in USD value that occurred from $32 down to $2? no - because it doesn't make any financial sense to do so - sell at $20 and rebuy at $5 even if you're a true believer etc. But what you're failing to realize is that the ones that did just hold their coins through all that really aren't even interested in financial theory or trading btc - they are trying to change the world. I can understand that being difficult to believe, but I'm 99.9% sure it's the truth. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: markm on February 05, 2013, 05:59:20 PM It is only stop loss if there is a loss.
As someone already pointed out they went from $1 each up to $2 each, with a bubble inbetween. Any point inbetween where it was momentarily going down was a risky point where if you sold you might not manage to buy back in before it skyrocketed to $50 or $100 or more leaving you no opportunity to buy back in. Also, if one is buying with hash power rather than buying with fiat then you are basically buying 24/7 using hash/difficulty averaging so if difficulty goes down you buy faster if it goes up you buy slower. Hmm, send money to some random scammer on the internet or buy more GPUs, let me think about that... Plus we already proved it can go to over $30, even before it has hardly even started to catch on and develop infrastructure. Any moment people will come back to their senses and it will scoot up to $1000 or so, want to be the guy who just sold for less than $100 when that happens? -MarkM- Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: Walter Rothbard on February 05, 2013, 06:08:40 PM Why do you we need a definition of lost coins?
Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: BCmale on February 05, 2013, 06:34:09 PM Some thoughts:
- De Beers and its secret diamond reserves. Keeping large amount of something considered "valuable" to yourself and out of the free market to make it look scarce, tends to raise the value of the valuables. Why not do the same with bitcoins? The owner(/s) can always have other wallets. - Someone used Bitcoin and didn't make a backup of his/her wallet and lost everything because of a hardware failure - Owner of the wallets are dead - A large pool owner or someone who wanted to make Bitcoin valuable to make business (FPGA or ASIC vendor, etc.) - Someone wanted to make Bitcoin more scarce to make it more valuable, so that he/she can exchange bitcoins to fiat money and get rich - Some ppl bored using Bitcoin, deleted their wallets and now regret it - Some ppl made their own "Bitcoin Reserve" for whatever purposes Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: QuestionAuthority on January 18, 2018, 03:43:15 PM Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: BountyX on January 18, 2018, 04:11:35 PM The fact that someone did not use his Bitcoins for many years is still not a proof that he may not use them in the future. Owners of those addresses may not be just individuals, but also organizations, which have different plans and behaviors than individuals.
Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: NoCoiner3000 on November 05, 2018, 03:58:43 AM A few of those addresses got wiped recently
I wonder what happened Did they find their paper wallets or got hacked? Kinda fishy that someone is sending them tiny amounts of btc daily, why is that? Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: OddEvenBets.com on November 05, 2018, 06:58:34 AM Disagreed, this is not "lost" bitcoins.
If we check first address 1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF balance 79,957.19651843 BTC and every day address get BTC from "Bitcoin buy or sell JUBTC.COM" and 1BestMixVhna91MkP7pKRtjej3bFq6Ze46. May be this address of exchange? Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: sinkfish on November 05, 2018, 09:12:26 AM Now, I do agree that most of the points made so far do apply to smaller holdings, but seriously, do you really believe anyone with USD 200,000+ invested in such a volatile thing as bitcoin will let it lose 90% of its peak value and not use any kind of stoploss rule? After all, isn't this one of the basic rules of investing? This is precisely the flaw in your reasoning. The people with large 10k+ btc holdings mined them back in 2010 and early 2011 and are NOT investors per se. Would any professional investor allow the loss in USD value that occurred from $32 down to $2? no - because it doesn't make any financial sense to do so - sell at $20 and rebuy at $5 even if you're a true believer etc. But what you're failing to realize is that the ones that did just hold their coins through all that really aren't even interested in financial theory or trading btc - they are trying to change the world. I can understand that being difficult to believe, but I'm 99.9% sure it's the truth. they considered pioneers and early investor. tough on lower amount but they start the trend. 1 small steps of a time. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: distributedconsensus on May 17, 2020, 01:44:40 PM Now, I do agree that most of the points made so far do apply to smaller holdings, but seriously, do you really believe anyone with USD 200,000+ invested in such a volatile thing as bitcoin will let it lose 90% of its peak value and not use any kind of stoploss rule? After all, isn't this one of the basic rules of investing? This is precisely the flaw in your reasoning. The people with large 10k+ btc holdings mined them back in 2010 and early 2011 and are NOT investors per se. Would any professional investor allow the loss in USD value that occurred from $32 down to $2? no - because it doesn't make any financial sense to do so - sell at $20 and rebuy at $5 even if you're a true believer etc. But what you're failing to realize is that the ones that did just hold their coins through all that really aren't even interested in financial theory or trading btc - they are trying to change the world. I can understand that being difficult to believe, but I'm 99.9% sure it's the truth. "...they are trying to change the world." --> Finally some people understand it and no, many of those are not lost for ever, believe me. They are preserved for the future Bitcoin economy where trading in and out in fiat will make no sense at all. Satoshi wanted them well distributed and that day will come when most of those coins will be payments for citizens so they can continue trading value without getting out of the system, by then we will trade in "satoshis" mostly. Title: Re: A simple definition of "lost" coins Post by: iTradeChips on May 18, 2020, 05:01:36 AM I was reading the whole thread and was fascinated with the concept of lost coins. Like a treasure chest in the Digitalandia, ready to be seen and found when the time comes like many, many years from now. The holder of these coins will simply just give their passwords to their descendants and will distribute the money to be used by the masses. Maybe hundreds of years later when Bitcoin would be the sole winner of the "Crypto" wars, will emerge as the leader of all currencies.
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