Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins and 4 million have already been lost. The last bitcoin will be mined in 2040, 21 years from now. How many more will be lost by then? The main thing to consider which nobody is mentioning is, people die. People who own bitcoin and have never shared there private keys with anyone else, die. How many people who own bitcoin will die in the next 21 years. What about the next 40 years? IF bitcoin is the one and it is the next move in the evolution of money and it is consistently being lost over time the value will increase exponentially. Think about it, 4 million lost in the first 10 years of its existence. Lets say conservatively 15 million are left in 20 years time, how many do you think the likes of JP Morgan, Sachs, Soros, Gates, Musk and governments of the world will own? You and me are WAY down in the pecking order. The rich will scoop up the majority and leave the world fighting over scraps.

I believe less than 1 million bitcoins will be accessible to the general public because the rest will be vaulted away. One world currency seems inevitable and seems like its getting closer and closer. Million bitcoins divided by just 1 billion is 0.001btc each, current value $4ish. Yeah sure there could be more bitcoins on the market and yeah the population could be 10 billion people in 20 years time who spend a currency and yes it will not be divided equally, its just a rough example of what could realistically happen. 0.001btc will be worth a lot more than $4ish that is a cert.

So many predictions on what the value will be one day. Mathematical equations, previous data and technical analysis. But in the end it comes down to one thing, acceptance. If it is given the green light, in bitcoin we trust. On the flip side of the coin a red candle would indicate, prepare for war. You cant shut down bitcoin, the founder is a ghost and now it has its own satellites in space, which means it doesn't even need the internet any more. Lightning network will take BTC to mass adoption, are you seriously even considering betting against the smartest people on the planet. What is bitcoin? Anything you want it to be. If you think about it logically, we live in a digital world, where 2 year olds are playing minecraft and entertainment, socialising, possessions live online. Food is ordered through an app and the likes of amazon deliver what ever you imagine. Once a tree was a seed and you never even existed. $0.003 BTC has reached $20K and 99.9% of the population were unaware of what bitcoin is. Imagine when 10% jump on board the moon train, wouldn't that make bitcoin
be worth $2 million each? I understand this would put bitcoins market cap in the 10's of trillions of dollars. You need to understand its not a company, its not owned by anyone it is essentially money. Like gold as an asset, as a whole is worth around $7 trillion. Comparing gold to bitcoin is like comparing a horse to a car. Both are a means of transport but are to complete different entities. You can choose to ignore, you can choose to trade, you can choose to hold. Many choices are on the table for those who have access. If you have money spare and are not invested in bitcoin it might be  worth asking, why?

The chances are your money is in a bank account earning 3% average a year if you don't touch it. Lets say bitcoin is $4000, lets say you have $4000 in your bank earning $120 a year (3%) if your lucky. In 10 years time you will make $1200 assuming your bank has not collapsed. How much will you make off bitcoin? This year its entering the stock exchange, 8 bitcoin terminals are being setup daily, lightning network is being deployed enabling fast payments for retailers, bitcoin is deflationary, accepted on a global scale, the future of money. Who knows how much you would make but the most you could lose is $5200. That's if a dollar is still worth a dollar.

If you are even questioning whether to invest or not your best off not. Mainly because you would not know when to cash out. Your mindset is limited to what is and not what the future holds. The world was is built through the imagination of those able to see. For countries to make bitcoin its main currency, the price needs to be astronomical to reduce its volatility. Example if BTC was $2 million, buying / selling 1000 BTC would not alter the price which is the equivalent of $2 billion. It would probably take a trillion dollars to drastically alter the price, which would exactly happen with fiat currency today. Bitcoin has, is and always will be successful. For you to succeed requires knowledge, patience, belief.

Bitcoin is always welcome at this address   3M5yqrrUH5CMyTXyhxmzemwFLsSNuzhqf6
The more donations received, the more I can spread the word offline. Making the public more aware of the world we are entering. Play hard, be safe.

A lot of BTC will be lost over time but the rate at which it is lost will only decrease. People would have been careless with it in the early days because they wouldn't have considered its future worth. One big difference with BTC is unlike fiat - if someone else finds your lost BTC they can't just pick it up and use it, or if you die it can't easily be passed on.

I find it fascinating that over a long enough timeline, all bitcoins could be lost due to human error. As in, you have not provided a spouse to access your wallet. I'm guessing 200 years from now 80 - 90% would be lost if bitcoin survived that long.

What do you mean they can not pick it up? Finding your lost bitcoin means finding the private key of the wallet and in that case they become the owner of the bitcoin.

I always keep my secret keys available to few people. Not the whole key phrase but the portions. My next of kin will be asked to find them and solve the puzzle.

Why do you care about this?
Less bitcoins means less supply and more scarcity,which might lead to bigger price pumps in the future and an overall higher bitcoin price.Every bitcoin can be divided into 1M parts,so having so many lost bitcoins won't damage the market.

Seems like your information is a bit wrong there. The mining schedule goes on to 2140, 121 years

Here's a reasonably informative article:


http://bitcoin.guru/when-does-bitcoin-mining-end/

Bitcoin will lose over time and this can lead to an increase in the price of bitcoin.

I am sure that in the future you need to verify all Bitcoin addresses. This will kill the scams that are currently on the market.

It is possible, I just like to have a little more faith in the human race to preserve their wealth. For all we know there may already be much more than 4m bitcoin which is lost. If BTC is to exist through many centuries then I would predict high percentages of it would be lost forever.


What I mean by that is that unlike fiat it isn't just dropped to the ground and someone else can pick it up and use it. Or even when you are deceased it's not just a case of signing over the funds to someone else. They have to have the private key available to access the funds.

Make sense. You were talking about physical existence. We are into a time where currency don't need to be physically exist. Think about online banking system, paypal and kind of payment processing system - shopping online does not require touching the currency. Currency are just some virtual digits and numbers.

In future there will be time when we will completely deny (perhaps will never need) a physical currency. Any financial transaction? Just swipe your mobile device or a contact less device or kind of things and trade done!

I think that bitcoin and crypto coins are very important structures. But the immortal approach was a bit too ambitious.

Get your facts right, I guess will be around 2140 not 2040, so 121 years from now.
Since you stated the post with so flawed information so I did not read beyond first paragraph.


People can put inheritance or use "Dead man's Switch". Anyways according to satoshi, each lost bitcoin increases the value of the existing bitcoin so do not worry about it.

Wow..what a statement! Bravo...we all now that technology always out live the peope who help to developed it and all the followers. The difference of Bitcoin and human kind is quite obvious..no need to explain..stay healthy and enjoy your profits from Bitcoin instead of thinking to much about it.

By the way if many investors save and hold their bitcoin without know by their family or friend more afraid, when he die how to get back their bitcoin and make bitcoin supply will be less.

If someone's die and their bitcoin loss forever, it means can help supply because it will not tradeable in market or anything else. But i think that will rare to happen because peoples maybe already prepared for that.

If Bitcoin will lose from the owner and stuck on the wallet because of losing private keys that is forever in there and might be minings can have benefits on that. Yes, people die but bitcoin will remain in your wallet and have a big chance that it will exist more years come on the market.

A wall of text that does not say anything that we do not know and then it ends with "begging" that are against the rules. If you do not want the moderators to delete this thread, I would remove the Bitcoin address at the bottom.  ::)

Also, Bitcoin gives no guarantees that the profit <increase in future price> would be more than interest earned with money in Banks. Yes, we had a excellent year in 2017, but there are no guarantee that it will happen again in the future.  ::)

i do not know what you mean by bitcoin's immortality but i know that bitcoin can not die and it is not a thing that can be regulated in the nature of the virtual system. whether or not people live and die, the bitcoin can not die but can be lost as a result of misplaced security keys and theft via hacking and phishing websites.

do we even need to compare the life of a person to bitcoin?

human beings are mortal because we die, bitcoin is immortal because it cannot die, in the sense that bitcoin is a new revolution that will live for generation to generation and i don't see it outdated in the near future because of its uniqueness.

It's not worth the read. I understand that Bitcoin can last forever but there's no guarantee that Bitcoin will become expensive in the future. The price could go up even further but it won't always be that high. It's only a matter of time until we see a new crypto taking over Bitcoin's place.


This has been discussed before by using google or the search bar on the upper right you'll find more these threads that discuss about investors who die with their Bitcoin.

What happens if we die? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2053833.0)
If the bitcoin holder dies (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2624949.0)
What if a person died with BTC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2547871.0)

An interesting article, I think that in view of the fact that bitcoin becomes less price will grow on it and if a person does not pass them by inheritance or just do not have time to do it will be even less. I think that bitcoin is predisposed to growth and it has no analogues.

For the globalization and digitalization, Bitcoin will be the future of money. Now a days people are showing huge interest to join in Bitcoin. Bitcoin will exist for ever because next generation will use it for their every necessary activities.

You cant say those things yet because it is too early  . anything can happen , what if satoshi decides to shut bitcoin down ? Because many people are still complaining blah blah blah or what if bitcoin will collapse and die permanently because it is really a huge bubble ?  Etc...

Nothing is immortal in this world aside from the creator ( god )  .   but lets forget all those possibilities for a while because those things are not good .  i also love bitcoin to last for a long time because it also give me alot of benefits that i cant find anywhere .

I find that there is a lot of hostility and sarky comments on bitcoin forum. Had several accounts over several years and no matter what people post, there is always someone there to be a moany little punk. I and everyone else don't get paid to write our thoughts, who are you to judge what i write. So you think your so clever and superior to everyone else, show me.

Create a single none manipulated thought. Post it and we will see how smart you actually are Mr Smartguy.

You have a point there. Well as for me bitcoin will only be immortal if and only if the bitcoin that possess or acquire by someone can be passed on easily to other people after he or she died. It is indeed that people will die and will leave bitcoin as is but that doesn't mean bitcoin can be immortal.

It's become the great opportunity for all people to own bitcoin because it's getting rare from time to time.
Of course before I die, I will turn out all of my bitcoin profit into fiat so it's not a major problem at all.

The problem only how far you can convince people to keep invest on it !

When people die, bitcoin supple will be less if some person keep hidden and no body know about some one was pas away have and save bitcoin at their wallet.

Right, bitcoin is immortal cause bitcoin did not died they will continue exist in the future and continues give us profit and no matter what happen in there value.

How can we know that 4,000,000 coins have been lost? The only ones lost
Are those sent to non bitcoin addresses or those which were mined in the
early days and have been destroyed by hardware being destroyed. There
are other cases of passwords and private keys to wallets being forgotten.

It is true that wallets will be rendered defunct due to owners death. We must
all be aware of this and take precautions. My Son knows where the private
keys to my wallets are should I die unexpectedly.

I think in the future people will think more carefully about storing their bitcoins. We're not immortal, so we have to figure out how our family can get our money. On this topic, there are already several discussions and there are considering options for how to save your bitcoins after death.

People are becoming more aware of their assets and it's safe keeping, as it's true value is beginning to unfold.
I believe that bitcoin holders should be considering the transition of their assets as it gets handed down after them. This would help prevent loss of bitcoins due to unforseen circumstances.

4 million are said to be lost and as more newbies lose their private keys more bitcoins will be lost. Demand will increase as it goes further into mainstream. Both factors means the price will pump

Who care if we will die
When i will die then for i will not take care of some private keys
For sure something has to happen on bitcoin blockchain because of energy use
Already now bitcoin miners have problems to find place to mine bitcoin
As for now i am waiting for bitcoin sidechain
It will be big steps for bitcoin