Bitcoin Forum

If a person has millions of Bitcoin and he die one day and no body can hack his Bitcoin wallet than what will happen with those Bitcoin? Considering this situation is this possible that Bitcoin will not exists for use in the world any day since limited numbers of Bitcoin can be generated?

What is your thought on this?

It would simply mean that he has lost these coins and the effective existing bitcoin supply would shrink by the amount of bitcoin that the person has lost as well. However there is also a possibility that someone recovers the address later, probably family or a hacker. Then, the actualy monetary base of existing bitcoins would increase dramatically again.

This is already done intentionally through the "burning" of coins, in some altcoin ICOs.

didn't you know bitcoin could be used in the afterlife? they have miners there too :D

but seriously if someone has 1 million bitcoin worth 750,000,000 USD don't you think he will think of something before he dies?

and as always bitcoin is just code and if someday in 20-50 years from now we feel like there are too many coins lost (burnt,...) that 21 mil cap is not enough there are a couple of things that can change like we can increase the cap or we can even go smaller than 1 satoshi if price was high enough but all of these need a real problem in the very far far future.

There could be multiple scenarios involved, firstly let's assume no one knows it. They are lost forever. The size will obviously come down. But then what's a millionare Bitcoin and no one knows he has it, has to have a girlfriend or someone close. Or some hacker would definitely find about it. He of course would be splurging so some one would know. Maybe even make a will to let people know he has. So I don't think your scenario could be a reality where Bitcoin are lost.

It is impossible to prove that certain coins belong to a certain dead person (just as it is impossible to prove that certain coins are inaccessible to the owner), so the supply of coins would really not change as there would always be the possibility that the coins would be spent in the future.

It would not be a good idea to invalidate coins that do not move after a certain number of blocks because of the large number of reasons as to why someone might not move their coins for a long time. Also LN (if ever implemented) will make it so destroying coins after a certain number of blocks will take money from those that are actively using Bitcoin as some users might not ever have their Bitcoin balance settled on the blockchain.

nothing, they will be lost forever

If it's totally gone and the demand still higher it will affect the bitcoin price too. So if I'm the one who had million coins I'll tell to some one close to me relatives or wife  what is needed to know to open my account in case something bad happen.

Yes whatever the number of bitcoin a bitcoin address was holding, if the owner dies or private key of that address got lost all those bitcoin will stay within that address nothing can be done to release it.

If more and more bitcoins get locked and become unaccesable, it will be good for bitcoin holders because this will limit the total supply that can be used ultimately pumping the bitcoin price.  ;D

If nobody knows about the bitcoins in his wallet and if they are on some offline wallet then yes,they are lost.

If they are deposited in some online wallet like Coinbase,perhaprs the wallet admins/owners can steal them. ;D

Just kidding about the second idea.

Don't know about coinbase but lots of other online wallets don't have access to users bitcoin because they use client side encryption to encrypt the wallet file and doesn't store passwords.

Best idea is to put paper wallet or hardware wallet in bank's safe deposit box with good amount of insurance and signing the form that this should belong to your family members when you die.

Basically nothing would happen.

No one would ever know, the market would continue as it always has.  It would be the same as say a vault of gold that was unused, untraded and then tossed into the ocean forever loss.

The only event that would matter would be if it was discovered then sold on the market, prices would dip for a bit for the flood of coins then return to normal as they are traded among people.

lol, the coin will be lost forever... unless, some lucky^lucky^lucky person one day installed his bitcoin wallet and found that his wallet contains millions of bitcoin. Theoretical this is possible, but the chances would be so small that practically it will never happen.

This is a situation has no easy answer. The reason is that it is human and has nothing to do with transaction, security etc of bitcoins. Really if someone has so many coins, no relatives who would inherit him and they  had informed from him, he had not followed legal procedures what would happened in case of death, then as we know the procedures of bitcoin protocol, coins would be rest in peace "buried" in a block in eternity.

The answer depends on certain things:

Did they owner share that he held bitcoin and give instructions to his family/in his will on how to gain control of them?

If he did not leave instructions and no clear way to acces them, they will likely be lost forever and go out of circulation.

Luckily the chance of such an amount being lost is insanely small because of the value.

I feel so sad for that bitcoins. Being left by their owners and kept on a wallet forever! But, I think he will not left that Bitcoins untouched. What if he already turned that to real money to donate but he died after converting it. Maybe he has sibling to pass the account of his Bitcoin wallet. A millionaire will never leave his money. He saved it for someone before he died.

If the owner dies, and the wallet is encrypted with 2fa and has not backed up the private key, and the guys are the one person who knows of this alone, this bitcoin then will be left untouched by others.  This is simply one case of "lost bitcoin", and it will stay on that address forever.

if he made no plans for such an occasion and if his keys will not be found (he must have wrote them down somewhere in order to do this), then you can consider the coins to be lost. simple as that.

what a pity for the person, mm I mean for those missing bitcoin. 1 Million bitcoin is too much to lost for good, I agree that for everyone here, hey everyone we should have backup data of our wallet and your beloved family could find and recover it just in case you die soon because of an accident (for example).
I always think if 21Million btc is so much, but for massive adoption in worldwide, is that enough? ??? Well, I thought there are a lot of bitcoin that has lost in many case, so we should keep remain stay in circulation.

It's the similar situation: If you are millioner and you'll burn all of your money, than what? Government won't print new money in people. While number of bitcoins is very limited (21 million) than I think after 5 years of no transaction from wallet which will be online, there must be deleted bitcoins but problem here is offline wallets, there can't be done anything. Let's watch what will happen in future, I think that huge lost won't happen.

nice thought. bitcoin has a high security system. so certainly bitcoin is not accessible when no one who knows the password. This will make bitcoin is stored permanently in the financial system bitcoin.

That's just a hypothetical situation but such thing has already happened in real when someone threw his computer hard drive containing million of dollars worth of bitcoins. In the hypothetical situation presented here there are still chances of recovering those bitcoins if someone in his family by chance happen to find the access to the wallet containing those bitcoins but if they can't then the coins are lost forever.

Well, the bitcoins will be lost forever if the password is not discovered. They will stay in that address forever (atleast until bitcoin ceases existing), and the circulation and number of bitcoins will decrease a fair amount. Thus, the price will have a steep hike I guess, due to lessening in the number of bitcoins in circulation.

Yes, such a situation has already happened, not once, but numerous times, like James Howells, who threw out a hard drive with 7500 bitcoins in it.
If someone recovers them, the price starts to rise steadily again, but anyway, due to the 'burning' of the bitcoins, the price will increase, in my opinion.

of course those coin will be lost forever and no one can ever recover his coins unless the person that we are talking about has left a back up of his wallet as well as the private key or any thing you need in order to access his wallet. a millions of bitcoin has a great worth so i don't think that he will never backup his wallet.

This might be the truth, the coins could be lost forever. But what if this person had some trusted person or member of the family who new the private key and wallet details? Then this person could inherit these coins in some way and use them further. In theory this is possible and thus coins wouldn't be lost.

That is the same story as with people's profiles on Facebook or Twitter for example. A human died and his profile still lives. Do such social networks make something with profiles not used for years? Does anyone knows something about it? And this million of bitcoin just going to be lost if sites with online wallet at will not provide some politic for not used wallets for years.

i dont think you can download someone's wallet and i think its not possible also but if you have the private key you have full control to someone's bitcoin wallet. and if someone doesnt have his private key the millions of bitcoin will be there stuck forever.

Do you know when you're going to die? You don't. He could die before he would even think of it in a crash or any other way. If he would die and nobody would have his passwords, these Bitcoins will just not exist anymore. If 10.000.000BTC would be lost by somebody, they would just sit there in the wallets and nothing would happen to them. This is why saving is good in case the price rises but at the same time it's bad because if everyone would save waiting for a price increase, 0 Bitcoins would be in circulation.

Wouldn't it just be the same thing as if someone just continued to hodl/hoard that amount of coins indefinitely without ever planning on spending them? For instance, hypothetically, someone inherited millions of bitcoins from a hodler/hoarder and then they themselves continued to hodl/hoard without ever spending and then when they died, they passed the same coins onto a hodler/hoarder and so on and so on...

Maybe when the system needs to shut down that would be the only time the access will gone. I doubt if people cant even said their password to the person they love probably some of those who knew how big their money will still think to rely their codes to the person they trusted just in case of emergency.

There is only one way - to invite some hacker and to give him that computer that person used to he try to find keys and passwords. I think such way is pretty possible.

If somebody with a million Bitcoins would die, I'd probably be happy :)

The supply would drop by quite a bit and cause the price to surge hopefully.

Of course, that's only if his private keys were lost. If he managed to pass his private keys on, than none of this would happen (unfortunately). And if you have a million bitcoins, I'm sure you have figured out a lot of plans in case of a disaster/death.

Interesting idea but in the most cases, people around this person will have no idea about his Bitcoin.
Other financial assets of any person, are always recorded somewhere, and when person passed away, court, public notary or some other legal representative, will find out how much financial assets (money, houses, cars etc.) this person had and who should inherit it, according to the law.
Bitcoin is not financial asset, so nobody can inherit it.
In fact, Bitcoin is virtual and connected to the online or offline wallet, not the person.
So, if this person didn't trust anybody, and didn't share login info from the wallet, those bTC funds will be lost.

if he has that much Bitcoins maybe he was already thinking about what he would do when he dies later as give all bitcoin to family or something like that

There already has been a lot of lost bitcoin and documented instances where people have also accidentally lost their stored bitcoins.

Current understanding simply means these are lost forever but theoretically all these private keys could be cracked with enough processing power.

Perhaps when the miners have next to no blocks left to find, some will turn hashpower to cracking these.

If a person has millions of bitcoins and he dies one day well theres is nothing we can do. His/her bitcoin will be kept to his wallet and no one can get it. His/her bitcoin will lose forever and no can used it even his/her family. But in my opinion, people in this kind of situation knows already what he/she need to do so that his/her bitcoins will be used to the people that are good in bitcoin or even to his/her family.

There are several methods how to leave inheritance in Bitcoin secure way. From dead-man-switch to cryptosteel in the basement's chest.  ;D

Can keep coins in BIP39 HP wallet, under different pathprases.
Seed and instructions can be left in the accessible place for all heirs, but dedicated individual passes distributed by a notary/lawyer after owners death, based on bequest.

This topic made me think of a way for the U.S. Government to eliminate Bitcoin someday if they consider it a national security threat. It would be best if this were done in seven years after most of the bitcoins are mined. They can start by criminalizing its use in Murrica. Then, because they are so wonderful and love us, create a purchase program allowing anyone holding illegal Bitcoins to sell them to the govt for a fixed cheap price. The govt takes those illegal nasty bitcoins and dumps them on the international market effectively crashing it down to nothing. Then they slowly start buying bitcoins from any and all sellers, burning every one they purchase from that moment forward until they've burned so many that it doesn't matter what's left.

You might think the U. S. government doesn't have enough extra money to do that. Remember, this is the government that spends $1.4 million dollars an HOUR for foreign military assistance and $4 million dollars an HOUR to blow up shit in Afghanistan.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

Well, I don't know what's gonna happen then but I pretty sure that it would be quite tricky for anyone who wants to hack this wallet.  But I do think there will be some possibility for the case that one person generates a new wallet and somehow that wallet has the same private key with this one to happen because this has already happened to a guy in this forum.

His family better hope that he left the private keys somewhere that at least they can find, or if he has encrypted the keys some needs to know the password.  I thought about this myself recently when setting up encrypted paper wallets,  i have hide my password and told my son where to find should anything happen to me.

Hodler still have access to his coins and can dump anytime. Dead person does not and basically the coins are lost forever.

this is a classic concern that has existed even from the beginning of bitcoin because of the limited and fixed number of coins that can ever be available. but luckily there are too many coins that lots of losses are lost among them and there is always 8 decimal points to work with.

I dont thibk this will be a problem.Basically if that would happen then it will be a dead wallet and he lost the bitcoins if no member of his family will use it.Also bitcoins in that wallet maybe hijacked by someone hacker if he is aware of that thing that the user is dead

While the chance of losing Bitcoin can never be ruled out, but someone that owns and control millions of bitcoin cannot be any Joe, Tom and Anna, etc out there, not the place of thinking about tomorrow. I strongly believe such huge amount would alert any owner of the need to be cautious, so he/she would most likely leave a trace somewhere of which time would tell.

If it does happen, then the amount of Bitcoin in circulation will drop that much and hence the prices will go up some more. I think this is one of the problems with bitcoin, throughout the lifetime of Bitcoins, there will be instances when a wallet will be lost with some Bitcoins in there. It doesn't matter if it's a million bitcoins or just one Satoshi. If we lost one billion wallets with one Satoshi, then the whole bitcoin network lost 10 BTC already. What if we lose this amount every year? Then, in turn, we lose 10 BTC a year and it will stack up till the end of time. Hence having only a finite amount of Bitcoins then losing Bitcoins every year because it is lost, then the amount of bitcoins circulating will eventually actually drop.

This is what practically may happen if someone has few satoshi in his account he'll not mind to give information to his family members for just one satoshi and his family members will also not bother to get those few satoshi.
if million of wallets every year go inactive and those have few satoshi each than big amount of bitcoin is going out of circulation.
And this will keep accumulating every year.

I dont really have any idea what will really happen to bitcoin when that happen. I think it could not moved or use it by anyone because its.locked in and it will stay forever on the wallet. But who knows some people find a way to hack any wallet because technology is very progressive every years are passing by. Also i think it can help to stablized more the price of it.

I have a question about the amount of bitcoin there are. How many BTC are available now all around the world? And how many BTC can there maximum exist, or is there no limit?

im not sure how to answer that particular point but if you are just referring with the bitcoin itself if no one can hack the wallet it will be stored
no one will use it and it will bring big value because the price will be stay on top because of this coin not being use or dump i guess.

If it does accumulate, we would have a gigantic amount of Bitcoins stuck in inactive wallets. What will happen if there has been indeed one million bitcoins that get stuck in those wallets? Then the amount of bitcoins that circulate would go down drastically, and in the end, prices will go up. This might be a great opportunity for some, but it would really be hard for others to transact Bitcoin if it cost so high. Especially when the transaction fees of miners stays the same. Imagine if the prices go to $1,000,000 per bitcoin and the transaction fees stay an average of 0.0002BTC to be confirmed on the next block, that would cost us $200 just to send a transaction over to the blockchain.

It is hard to tell that how much Btc are available in all around the world, But maximum 21 millions bitcoins can be generated so Bitcoin is limited in numbers.

So, there can never be more than 21 million BTC. When will the maximum be reached? If you can count good, there is not 1 BTC available for every person in the world? If there are only 21 million, is it not so that it will never be a good kind of money to pay with? There can only be a very small % of people in the world who can have 1BTC.

I think Yes it will stuck on his wallet forever unless he has given is private keys and train on bitcoin how to retrieve it. Also, since that bitcoin can not circulate anymore, bitcoin demand will be affected.


I think you can check here on www.coinmarketcap.com

The maximum will likely be reached around the 22nd century, as the last true block will be mined and it'll become transaction fees from there on out. I doubt we'll have many supporters on Bitcoin as it'll likely have fallen to some other more superior coin by then, believe it or not, but one can always hope :)

As long as the dead person keeps his private key offline, i don't think that anyone can hack it for example if he used offline wallet in this case is desktop wallet, all the hacker need is to hack his pc and  it is harder than hacking password, moreover if he used paper wallet i don't think they can do that, all we know that paper wallet is a good way for storing bitcoin and stay away from the hackers, however hackers always find a new method to reach their goal but it's depends on people, securing their wallet, basically every wallet has its unique features which allows hackers to stay away from your bitcoin.

who said every single person on the planet should use bitcoin? and they never will there will always be a small percentage using bitcoin. also there is nothing called bitcoin as far as code is concerned. there is only satoshi and what you are calling 1BTC is defined as 100000000 satoshi in code. now do you still think there isn't enough coins for everyone?

besides what you are saying is a problem for the future and that future won't come in our lifetime.

One holding such a big number of bitcoin is possible only with early adopters. In my view one won't just hold such a big number of bitcoin, at least they will invest into various firms in different forms.

i think that before he dies he would rather tell his family members to continue,
but in my case if i will be in his place then i would donate to the poors and some needies :-\ :-X

That will be possible if only that hacker knows the persons' identity and his activity durimg his time when he's still alive there's one of his family member who has knowledge on computer technology and know that the person who passed away is using and kept bitcoin then there will be a chance to get the coin. Probably the said amount of bitcoin will be lost forever that's the only consequence that I can see.

I think nobody has such amount of btc (maybe a few people aroung the whole Earth), so this isn't likely to happen. If it happened. however, I suppose those btc would be in a frozen state forever and yet not burned. I think we need a law for such cases just like there are in a bank. The law to unlock the wallet to which nobody got access for 70 years, for example. But... wait.. it's impossible, isn't it? That's a problem then.

I think that a man with such Bitcoins amount in your account, very intelligent, so tell someone of his relatives data account.

Disregarding the personal tragedy of the former holder, who didn't spend his Bitcoin while he/she could enjoy it, it's not a problem for Bitcoin at all. I don't know why, but similar kinds of questions are being asked repeatedly in this forum.

The answer is pretty simple: Even if, due to repeated losses, less than a single Bitcoin remains in general circulation, Bitcoin will still work as a currency, because it is (with precision updates) almost infinitely divisible. The maximum number of a slightly less than 21 million Bitcoin Satoshi chose is pretty much arbitrary. He could also have chosen 500 trillion, 1000 or just three. It just doesn't matter.

ya.ya.yo!

It's no different than someone who buries their fortune and dies before telling his family.

You want to pass on your private keys in a will before you die.

A person with that amount of wealth wouldn't be stupid enough to die and leave no trace of how to get into his Bitcoin wallet. Someone would know.

However, if he did just die and left no one with access to his wallet, first of all he is very stupid, but that would just mean that the coins were lost and the amount of Bitcoins in circulation would reduce.

The person might just think that no one else deserves his wealth and just decides to die with it.

If he dies without telling someone about his bitcoin and nobody can access his bitcoin even in the future, its no problem at all its just that that bitcoin will disappear and like you said it similar to burning. It happen way back 2009 to 2011 when big holders throw away their hardwares with their bitcoin in it and after few years later when bitcoin skyrocketed in value they tried to find their hardware but they never find it again. Why did I said, its no problem, losing a significant amount of bitcoin in the circulation is not a bad news since it will just bring a skyrocket price to bitcoin. Its a good news to me who holds small mount of bitcoins.

If I am going to accumulate a big amount in bitcoins in the next few years, I would include my private key in my testament or otherwise what is the point. I think is very important to take some time and to plan ahead if something unexpected could happen.

Always have a plan B.

What you said is correct If their is anyone who have got high number of bitcoin in account and lost it or the owner died without informing wont affect that much in the current market but when the halving will happen and mining outcome become more lesser and difficult then the price will rise as their will be shortage of supply in the market and every one will want to hold it so that they can enjoy the bitcoin

Millions of bitcoins .dude thats too much .i think he would have thought that before he is dying how to use it for their grandchildren .well i hope that doesnt happen because millions of bitcoins getting lost .thats a huge loss for us .kudoos :)

If I say millions of people have lost millions of Satoshi due to losing their wallet than what? This sounds something possible that Bitcoin will not exists any day in the world. This is different thing that time it's place will take different crypto coin.

this is important to users bitcoin leave a key of wallet to bitcoin can use it's mean you have to show your family about your key

If he lost that huge amounts of bitcoin then it will float forever on bitcoin network and consider as dead sicne theres no already access on that particular point but the main thing here is that the supply of bitcoin would be lessen and prices will surely go rise. Its just my own opinion though.

Any guy with one million bitcoin will create a last will or create a plan for his relatives or inheritors to retrieve those Bitcoin,it is a big foolishness if you have not  create this things knowing that anything is possible in this worls,but if ever those coins are lost forever and only hard fork can retrieve it..

Of course they will be lost and total number of bitcoin in the world would shrink. This is where bitcoin is different from money, as nobody will be able to access or use what the person has left unless he has left some instructions.
But with this huge amount, obviously it will be in his will or something. Someone would know and try to hack it at least. But the good thing is no third person would every know.

It is a possibility people should consider. Let me share some possible solutions to the problem:

1.You have a paper written in "your things" with instructions on how to access your bitcoins/wealth, including detailed instructions on how to use bitcoin or whatever it is. When you die, people will automatically look in "your things" then it should be found by someone close.

2.You keep your wealth in a bank, where the government has complete access and can simply divide the wealth to your remaining family or it just goes back to government's treasury.

There is a problem with your 1st solution. What if they don't find that thing where you wrote the private key or password to your online wallet? Then it will still be lost then. What if the one who found it does not know about bitcoin? Then they will just ignore your writing.

Regarding the second solution. We talking about bitcoin. There is no bitcoin bank as of yet. So this is not viable. You don't deposit your bitcoins in banks, how will banks distribute them if they don't have access to your bitcoins. They don't actually don't have any service regarding bitcoin, in fact.

It always exists, it just exists in a currently inaccessible address and someone will more than likely find it one day. If anyone has any information related to the private address it can reduce the amount of possible choices considerably, so even a first character does a lot, and even better the further information provided.

Chances are it would have an effect on the value until someone finds them again.

If that person lost his huge amounts or millions of bitcoin then for sure he already prepared it because he knows that he will die someday by accident ,disease or age and i do assume that he keeps the bitcoin safe and some preparations incase he die because he dont like to waste such bitcoin and might inform one of his family. If theres no way to revocer that coins then it will float forever on bitcoin network.

The person who holds the Bitcoin loses out and thats all.

The scenario here is exactly the same with how satoshi's coins are never moved and how coins are burnt or addresses lost. Bitcoin have 8 denomination and with the lower total coin, the price of the coin will increase. This will not affect Bitcoin negatively, users would just use a smaller denomination if majority of the coins are lost.

Since there are lots of other bitcoin millions then it is not an issue if there are enough bitcoins or not, the price of bitcoin probably will keep increasing because of the demand. And I think that this could be good for bitcoin, not bad.

That is what happened to Dave Kleiman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Kleiman#Bitcoin_involvement_rumors).

who is dave kleiman? And how much bitcoin he have?

Probably the real Satoshi. I have given a link to follow. Now, it is up to u to go deep down the rabbit hole. ;)

I think keys can be recovered from his computer or laptop, what ever he used in his life. A bit skilled person will crack it in few hours, of course if family even know about bitcoins, in case that was secret family will not call hacker and bitcoins will stay hidden.
I believe there is always a way, if someone knows about coins and make some effort coins can be recovered.

It would not remain his personal loss, but it will be the loss of entire bitcoin network as no one would be able to use those coins (unless there are any provisions like backup by the deceased person). There are high possibilities of such scenario as top 10,000 bitcoin wallet hold much more amount than rest of the network (correct me if I am wrong), so it will push the price of other bitcoins but it will still be the loss in the long run.

well that is a wrong assumption.
because someone with a million bitcoin surely has invested that much and the first thing such a big investment requires is security and i am sure when you invest that much the first thing you do is encrypting everything and even the most skilled people can not break encryptions if they are done correctly and it is not even hard to do it .

If his family knows it then they can think of something like looking for a copy of his private address (I'm sure the owner wrote a copy of it on his desktop or somewhere else) but if they don't then the coins will be lost forever and will cause a decrease in bitcoins supply, but I don't think its a bad thing cause if the demand continue to increase its price will also be .

If somebody has bitcoins in his wallet and nobody knows of them, or has a key to the wallet, then they are gone for good.
That is actually an interesting point of view: since the total number of bitcoins that can ever be mined is fixed to 21 millions, the realistic number of available bitcoins is decreasing permanently.
Not only bitcoin owners die, I'm sure every day a few passwords ar lost, or transactions are accidentally made to a wrong wallet that is not in use anymore.
This is a factor of price increasement I never thought about.

That is why it is important that our family know that we are investing in bitcoins.  Teach them how to use and store bitcoins.  Tell them where you store your bitcoins and write your passwords and store them in a safety deposit box which they can access in case something happens to you.

But I have few satoshi so telling password of my wallet will not change my family members life even they will not try to check. So just think if so many people lose Bitcoin(satoshi) like me than how many Bitcoins are lost every year?

This is a very good question and is why we should all keep paper wallets in a place our loved ones have access to just incase we die. Of coarse it helps if they understand where to find it and how to use it. Not having a paper wallet for such circumstance is silly. Those bitcoin will be lost forever and the value would go through the roof since there so many missing coins.

for being a hero member you're kinda dumb aren't you? No person has millions of bitcoins and never will. Lets forget your silly ass number, lets say thousands of bitcoin and he dies then if he not allowed anyone access before his end then they are gone forever or until a quantum computer feels like taking them.

If you don't specifically teach your trusted relatives how to decrypt and properly store your bitcoins, they will have to ask a third party in order to learn how to do so, risking getting scammed, or to search it over the internet and whatnot. If they are not computer literate people, it can lead to a big disaster. So if you plan in leaving your coins to relatives or your kids, you must teach them with all details how to properly get this done.

That is exactly what I meant in my post.

yah u are right  that the bitcoins would be lost forever .and yes the address may be recovered by any close relative or any  computer specialist .and i would think he  would take somme precautions steps while before dieing .but this is not the case for accidents.people will never know when they will die .so  they should precautionary steps from the first.

If it was me, and I am making just an example here as I am no millionaire at all, if I die all the bitcoins will bury with me. I don't leave PIN-s of my hardware wallet, passwords of electrum and Multibit HD to no one.

Although my family is not tech savvy they can find the recovery sheet with 24 words of my ledger wallet, they can restore with it and get all my coins, my family at the max, no one other. No cousins, no one.

I like enjoying things alone, for as long as they last even if it's just one day.

I've read the wiki article and I think it's possible the Dave Kleiman and Craig Steve Wright could've made Bitcoin. I guess who ever they are, they were awesome creating Bitcoin.

What I think of them is someone killed Kleiman to obtain Bitcoins (depending on how much he had). Killed him for his money. Or maybe I just watch too many movies lol.

I think its pretty ovious what would hapen tho tbh

Nobody would ever be able to access them and wed be fuked my dude

well those bitcoins would be lost forever, but there was a thread here regarding the lost bitcoins. Shortly, should the bitcoins that are in the wallet that hasn't been active for over 10+ years be returned to the miners? I believe tht that system would solve the future lost bitcoins and get the lost ones back in the stream.

is this the one?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1708750.msg17124348#msg17124348 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1708750.msg17124348#msg17124348)

absolutely, here the op suggested 50+ years, but half a century seems like a lot to me, the ideal number of years for me would be 14-15,  10 years is maybe just enough for bitcoins to be returned but let's say that someone is planing on 10 year hold or something like that, there may be atone of reasons and 20+ well are a lot and if they're not spent in that time, they are probably forgoten about and will never be, so I think that 14-15 is the perfect number.

Well, I can assure you, if there is no policy, then millions will be stored in bitcoin wallet forever. but, I think it will not last long, because it would have a lot of people who want to try taking the bitcoin from his wallet, even when he was alive. Well, we'll never know what will happen

I think it is better to keep the pass keys on a USB in your safe and passwords written on paper in case that doesnt work.
The family members should be made aware of the keys and how to use them. If not then all that btc is to waste.

i think that amount will be disappear and loss forever with that person and can not be use like the other bitcoin, because no one can use or could spend the amount of the bitcoin and its still remain in the dark. but if before that person dies, he telling with his family that he is keeping some amount of bitcoin and wants his family to continue for keeping the bitcoin, then that amount of bitcoin is not loss forever and its still save in the wallet.

Remind me to put the guide on how to use the wallet in my last will. :D
Yeah, I believe I'd keep a separate wallet just to sit there and hold btc for the better future, occasionally depositing something from time to time, so when I'm gone my kids and grand children will have some money to spend on hookers and cocaine.

But what if that man dies a sudden death? without sharing the wallet info with his close ones? That's why I think that bitcoins that are in wallet that hasn't been used, synced in the last 15 years, be returned to the original miner od back in the blocks that are to be mined. With that, lost bitcoins would be returned back and just imagine in around 50 years, when the most of us from this forum die take their bitcoins with them, and even in 120+ years when the large chunks of people holding that btc pass away also taking their btc with them and the number of bitcoin is limited, so there will always be portion of it missing that would never be returned, but by restoring them to their original miners, they'd be back in the flow.

That's why an 0 and a point (,) is valuable in bitcoin transaction.
Although lots coin is lost, bitcoin can still exist. Not with additional coins but the price will going higher.
Maybe if thats happen in the future who knows 0,0003 btc is $500. Imho

Just imagine a jail cell that has a million prisoners inside it and then the key has been lost. The jail cell can never be opened unless they break it. So, a wallet whose owner is dead would need to be hacked before you can use the funds again. Otherwise, these millions of bitcoins would forever be trapped in that wallet. I think thousands of bitcoin wallets are already in this situation, we just don't know it. Some wallets have untouched funds for years but we can't just assume that the owner is already dead. Maybe he's just holding the money for a really long time.

There's still a possibility that after looking on his files, his relatives find a .txt file that has his private keys. Or maybe some note left behind just in case he dies one day that would reveal everything on how to recover his bitcoins online.

Indeed. There is usually a more efficient way to find his private key than to actually have to brute force his private key because there are a lot of the times personal influences on one's passwords, and passwords may match from site to site.

However, if you don't even know who that person is behind the scenes, like somebody like satoshi, when they die, it is almost impossible to recover the coins unless you can brute force his private keys. Or maybe you don't even know what addresses he controls, which makes it even harder.

At some point in the future someone will make a jailers master key that unlocks all the cells. It's called quantum computing.

Yeah, but whenever that happens we will never know.

And also, when quantum computing comes then bitcoin is likely to fork into a version that is quantum computing resistant, likely with a different algorithm instead of SHA-256. But we'll see...

I'd be stupid for a person holding a millions of coins without any sort of backup or telling his family.
Heck, he'd probably buried the coins inside a bank safe and when the bank receive the news about his death the bank will contact his family.

Worst case scenario his bitcoin will be gone just like this guy
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site

Making supply of coins lower than before and hopefully increasing the price as the demand of bitcoin keep rising.

Yes, but will it be before some wise assed computer geek at NASA or the NSA or some other alphabet agency uses his new discovery to find a million lost Satoshi coins? As you say, we'll see...

Well in this case it is really difficult to say because the bitcoin is kept in his wallet for life and he is the soul owner of that wallet he alone has the password to wallet what think is that wallet or those bitcoin in that are lost for life maybe miner can be able to min it because people needs it.

It will be good if the bitcoin from the dead person can't be take, it will increase btc price 😄😄

I dont think it could really affect on bitcoins price as of these days but when the time that all coins have been mined already then demand will rise and supply have been stopped already which means it would certainly rise up its price. Lossing such huge amounts of bitcoin is really frustrating specially when you are the person who died and didnt even tell someone regarding on your coin possesion.

It would definitely affect the BTC price if a person has millions of Bitcoins, but actually I think that such a person doesn't exists. Most of the early adopters sold their coins at $200 or even at a lesser price because they were already profiting big time.

The USB drive is a average method to store data, but you have to make sure that you store it correctly. When not using the flash drive, be

sure to cover it with a cap to prevent the accumulation of dusts and contaminants on the contacts. Rust is a major issue and the rust will

accumulate on the contacts first. I like a laminated paper wallet more.  ::)

Then we will consider it is a hidden bitcoin, it will affect the price and the circulation of bitcoin because bitcoin amount is decreasing, so it will make the price become higher and decreasing amount is a disadvantage situation for another user

Probably you must be right. Still we can see many of early bitcoins were remaining unmoved. It means they maybe waiting for some more huge price levels or they have sold out the private-key by trusting the seller (as they were early adopters).

Why not we assume that person has dominated his assets and the new owner is just waiting for main stream adoption of bitcoins.

It would take a special kind of person to not sell those coins at 100 or 200 dollars, those wallets are most likely not accessible anymore.
I don't even expect Satoshi's coins to move at all.

What if satoshi planned this a long long time ago. He predicted that his creation will become a real hit and he's just waiting for it to reach a certain peak before he sells everything he has. The problem here really is when millions of wallets just becomes dormant forever. I mean think about it, what if every wallet that goes dormant has around 1 to 100 satoshi only, multiply this by one million times a year. That would be a lot of coins that will be stuck forever in dormant wallets.

This makes no sense at all Nakamoto has soo many coins, we dont know how many coins in total he had mined, we see some of the wallets he used in the past, maybe not all his portfolio, but even as developer im ceptical why he hasnt sold his coins at 1000 dollars, and neither now, those means milions that is enought to have an amazing life further. I do believe he is dead or lost the keys to those wallets, thats the only way a person has soo many money stucked at bitcoin for no reason, i doubt he were expecting bitcoin to reach bigger values then 1000 dollars.

Life is all about the journey bro. He might want Bitcoin to succeed more than he wants fame or money.

“A leader is best
When people barely know he exists
Of a good leader, who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will say, “We did this ourselves.” ― Lao Tzu

That would be a tragic that would be happening on his wallet,we can never tell that he invest and trade it,and there's someone he already trusted and already know about his millions,that person will inherit his millions of bitcoins.I don't think that person is not that wise enough just wasted what he is working hard for,he already planned on what to do on his millions of bitcoins.

With the simple words , It is a very complicated topic because It happened with me .
I made start bitcoin earning in 2011 and left it because there was no much idea to make money but that time about  I was using freebitco.in site and spread my refferal in the many bitcoin Facebook groups and forums , when some person joined through my refferal then I got about 0.01btc in 6 months but I had already left my bitcoin job and wallet was unrecoverable because my email was unrecoverable due my misunderstanding but about a months ago I get succeed in recover my wallet . There was everything same like was earliar .
So here if I will not use my bitcoin then it will remain as was without any use .

If such thing happens, nothing can be done. It goes wasted, similar to a person who threw his hardware wallet into the garbage in which he had saved more than 7500 bitcoins. And in a short term when he searched for it, its been destroyed. Better is to understand its potential and make it understand to the future generation. So somehow it gets used.

It will be a pity if such thing happens, to distroy such huge fortune and there is still very high possibilty that the price will increase, but there is nothing we can do to restore it without having access to the wallet.

I know some BTC must have been lost but 1 million is a huge figure

so many milliniors died on daily basis, their properties are distributed in his inheritance, so if his wife or children or parents know about his wallet key then they will distribute his bitcoins according to the law other wise they will lose all his bitcoins if he do not know about his wallet key.

Person having millions of Bitcoin isn't a one with bullshit mind. He will surely prepare "will" for his Bitcoin too. Something like written private keys or web wallets' password on paper and put it in his locker. lol!  ;D
Well, if Bitcoin once lost, not possible to regain. The required amount goes directly to scrap!
One more thing, you are talking about millions of Bitcoin! 1 million Bitcoin is 4.76% of total supply. Surely such thing gonna change Bitcoin community forever.

Thats what the bible says, what shall a man profit if he gain the whole world and lost his own soul. It means we cannot bring material wealth after death. Our life on earth is temporary so do the best of it.

If this happens, I think nothing should happen to the wallets of these people, consider lost and the total of available coins will decrease. I do not think it's fair since somebody can get this wallet even if it's 10 years later. The idea I saw after some time erasing those coins for me does not make sense.

It is a hypothetical situation by the way.
And blockchain has the record of all accounts
If they get any information like the one above, they will first cross check then if there is no family member who is claiming that then they would probably charity that money or use it for someone's benefit.

Thanks for that brilliant quote. It is totally adequate to what Satoshi did! He created something great and then leave it to people.
I am convinced that his move was calculated and it is an experiment to see if we are ready to handle the concept of decentralized money.

Also there is no need to worry about lost bitcoins, they are just make our coins worth slightly more.

The coins won't be destroyed just because the person died and no one can gain access to the wallet, it'll just be unspendable together with the other unspendable addresses like 1BitcoinEater.

so if he share his wallet key then he can get his millions of bitcoin, and can distribute it in his family, but if no one has the key of his wallet thin there is any other way of recovering his wallet and all bitcoin will be wasted.

He will or can prepare willfor his Bitcoin . Like written private keys.
Well, if Bitcoin once lost, not possible to regain.
And also you are talking about millions of Bitcoin! as far as i remember i guess 1 million Bitcoin is around 5-6% of total supply i guess. If that happens it will affect us a lot i guess.

The money supply wouldn't be changed. The bitcoin haven't disappeared or been removed from the money supply, they just can't be accessed.

And given that we have zero way of knowing how many bitcoins are "lost" the market can't respond to these scenarios, positively or negatively.


The moral to this entire discussion is - make sure you have backups of your private keys or BTC locations and provide instructions for someone if something should happen to you!

Then of course the bitcoins will be gone forever.

So when every bitcoin holder will die than theoretically bitcoins will be also dead.
But i dont think that someone is holding this big amounts of bitcoins.

I guess if that happen, we do nothing about it, and of course the person who die it is obviously He loss everything, all the efforts and time he saved for bitcoin will goes to nothing, though no one can take it from his wallet address I mean none of it can hack it. It just like will be bury in the ground.

My thought is that you're most likely this guy - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=833860. How close am I?

Yes, I guess, this thing will happen if this is the case or situation and this should happen that the coins will remain on his wallet and be stock on and since it is stock on the demand of bitcoin increases because his coin is not moving.

The only person (or group of persons) who potentially has even close to one million bitcoins is Satoshi, so a person having "millions [plural] of Bitcoin" as of now is impossible.  Someone could purchase one million bitcoins, but that would disturb the market so much that by the end they might have paid many 10s of billions of US dollars for them, but it is of course possible.

As far as what happens if he were to die, did he have his private keys somewhere others could access it/them?  If so, someone else (his heirs) can access them.  If not, then they are lost, probably forever*.


* I say 'probably' because we don't know how the private keys were generated.  Perhaps the PRNG was bad, he used a brain wallet and someone discovers it or something else.

but if he life the key to his children then they will distribute the bitcoin according to the law. and i am sure that if a person has so many bitcoin in his wallet he will certainly store his wallet key some where in a safe placer where only his children can only reach after his death. so the total number of bitcoins are not going to decrease.

It will be very sad that he didn't spend them all how he wanted. Of course it will be awful to know the rest of us that all those BTC are lost, but maybe one day someone can ''take them back''. I prefer his family ''find'' and use them than a hacker.

This option is impossible to happen and as such have no meaning to be discussed. But if needed to tell something I suppose that bitcoin will exist again (are the remaining coins) and its value will be even more higher than the situation in which the firsts will be in circulation.

nothing will happen his all bitcoins will be lost so its better to be ready before you die :)

I think the money will be lost forever because I think it will be really hard to hack him especially if he has millions of bitcoins et would have secured is password...So I have no solution to take that money.