Bitcoin Forum

I read on lost Bitcoin today on the coin telegram on the topic of lost Bitcoin and I stopped to wonder what benefits the lost Bitcoin are to every holder, there is no gainsaying how much Bitcoin we have all lost due to one reason or the other some to a wrong address I hard of a guy that lost the private key to a wallet holding about 13,000 Bitcoin and wants to ask should we take such accidents as a donation to Bitcoin holders?

Burning coins is actually a thing in some altcoins - often to get higher rewards of another token or some other potential gain.

But yes there are a lot of predictions on how much could actually have been lost from people this way. It's obviously hard to tell who's still holding and who isn't, and then the other question of whether any of satoshis funds (or any of the original blocks will be spent at some point or if they're just lost).

Lost bitcoins lead to a reduced supply and a thinner supply flow against demand usually results in a increase in the price.

Does it really benefit other holders? I would say it is a zero sum game; Firstly,it's a regrettable situation for one to lose access to their bitcoins due to carelessness or ignorance and it presents a risk that could demotivate some from getting into bitcoin; An average Joe would not want to be entirely responsible for their assets, where one wrong move could result in it getting lost.

Secondly, determining what bitcoin are lost is purely down to speculation, except the holders come out publicly. So adding some more couple thousand bitcoins into the lost pool which cannot be determined does not do much for it to be a benefit to other holders.

I believe this guy knows what he's talking about:

bitcoins crucial feature is that as long as you keep your private key private no one can take your funds

adding in features to take funds off people, by some silly reason like that person has not touched the coin in 10 years. is ripe for abuse, and should be treated as theft.

if people lose their key. thats their fault. no one should be able to have anyway to take coins off them for silly reasons.

if you want to offer any code that allows fund stealing. start with your own coins. let people take your coins off you because if have not moved them recently

no one should get free coins for doing nothing but hoping that other people want to hoard them long term

Lol, respect LoyceV for remembering literally any post from any date ever created on this forum! :D I have seen you doing that a couple of times and I enjoy that a lot. That's worth the merit! Jesus, you jus remember a post from 2010... Any suggestions as to how I could improve my memory? :P

The benefit of lost Bitcoin to every holder is that the supply is reduced. If the supply is reduced, whatever that is left will become more in demand, therefore more valuable. Compare that with fiat, for example. The fiat supply is always increasing. The result is the reduction of its value.

Lost Bitcoins cannot be accessed anymore. So we cannot make anything out of them. They cannot be donated to Bitcoin holders either. They're just there stuck in the blockchain forever.

There's no direct impact towards what it can do for other people but there's definitely an overall impact towards what it can give towards the economy. Hopefully, it can somewhat be noticeable once a lot more people have been involved in crypto. It's such a crazy thing, to begin with losing that much without that kind of intention but that's just how it works.

satoshi is a person from the future, he/she has even predicted in great detail that the missing coins will be a donation for everyone.  in the worst case scenario, the missing coin becomes the pillar of the bitcoin price even though everyone sells their own bitcoin.

That does not have anything to do with bitcoin holder, he lost the private key address through accident and it has nothing with investment because both the profit the coin have gathered since the missing of the wallet keys, it shown that the person in question don't have access to the coin

I don't think so if one lost the Bitcoin, anyone will get it easily!? The person who had Bitcoins must aware his family or closed one that he has Bitcoins and have some access to use that. Most probably family or nearer one will help him/her to access the Bitcoin.

And in my thought it is impossible to access the bitcoins if it will be lost and it also can't be donated. It will be stucked in the Blockchain for lifetime.

I think it has a great deal with investment as any Bitcoin lost is equivalent to a reduction of total supply and that will also increase Bitcoin value so I will say the op is correct in this statement. Even Santoshi mentioned that in a post that is quoted in the thread by another user.

I actually think that he somehow saves important quotes somewhere. I don't think he just remembers everything and then every time he has to quote, he has to search for the thread and then for the exact post to quote it.

Let's hope he comes here again and clears up the doubt.

Regarding what the OP says, not much more to add to Satoshi's quote, simply that it is a mathematical question of supply and demand. Today we still have large price swings but at a constant demand, if the supply is smaller the price is higher, there's no secret.

Thanks, you are one of bitcointalk's most knowledgeable users with in-depth knowledge and also an archive. I appreciate your comments and looking forward to seeing more replies from you on this thread.

Destined to be burned I guess, without those lost bitcoins, the price won't trigger as it is right now because the amount that has been lost is also huge and could contribute to the price of bitcoins in the crypto market. Well, I feel bad for those people who weren't paying attention when sending their bitcoins to the wrong address but on the other hand, they just need to move on and forget about it cause it's part of the game where some will win and some will lose.

It still dependent on it right? Unless it's going to be on the market all the time which could dilute everything with its value. With that super large amount, it could really affect the market unless the owner wouldn't sell it but who will not though? I think with the current needs that we have in life, it's quite demanding that we have. I think it's unnecessary to experience this wrong address. It's carelessness for sure.

Don't be ridiculous, no one can remember every post on the forum, and those who know how to use the forum search option can easily find what they want. You don't need to improve your memory usage, you just need to learn how to use the forum.

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Pause for a moment before opening a new thread with a question that has been answered at least dozens of times. If something has a limited quantity, and if a part is lost over time, how it can affect the value of something that is in demand in the market? I don't know how old you are, but this is a question that some elementary school student would ask, not someone who has been a member of the forum for months.

Friendly advice, stop filling your head with nonsense from third-rate crypto portals like the one you cited as an example.

Many investors will never learn from those bitcoin investors that always exposed their private keys to public. The moment you share your personal bitcoin details to people in the community, it will be very easy for scammers to have access to your wallet address whenever you expose your personal details. Now that bitcoin price is about to increase higher in the market, it will be better for everyone to keep their wallet address safe from scammers.
Such losses is not a donation in the community because the person exposed his private key to his friends that cause such damages to his account. Try to keep your wallet address from your family members so that anyone  cannot have access to your money.

First, we assume that demand for bitcoin will either stay the same or increase. Second, we assume that the total supply of bitcoin will stay unchanged. Third, we assume that lost coins will never be recovered. Fourth, we assume that the law of supply and demand is the only economic force to govern prices on the market. Fifth, we assume that the law of supply and demand actually works. If all our assumptions are correct, then we can safely assume that any reduction in the supply of bitcoin, including lost coins, may lead to an increase in the price of bitcoin. And if you are familiar with the law of supply and demand, you can explain why the increase in the number of lost coins may serve as a donation to others holding their coins. If you are not familiar, then you will have a hard time understanding why bitcoin's price is moving at all.

This will be a very valuable lesson for those who lost Bitcoin. If you don't understand bitcoin you shouldn't do anything silly and shouldn't do something you don't know about, it's better to learn about it than to lose something you love. It was a recklessness that he should have been more careful in keeping the private keys of his Bitcoin wallet. They lost 13,000 Bitcoins, this event should not have happened because that much bitcoin could be used to buy luxury homes and luxury cars and most importantly, our lives would not be difficult.

We don't know Satoshi's game and the plan for the lost coins, but this is also possible:

https://news.bitcoin.com/online-sleuths-believe-satoshi-nakamotos-bitcoin-stash-is-a-blockchain-treasure-hunt-meant-to-be-found/ (https://news.bitcoin.com/online-sleuths-believe-satoshi-nakamotos-bitcoin-stash-is-a-blockchain-treasure-hunt-meant-to-be-found/)

'Lastly, the online detectives also discussed Satoshi’s famous lost coins quote: “Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.” Maybe, Satoshi wasn’t talking about coins lost over time, but the creator’s stash hidden inside the blockchain via text or a myriad of messages.

“Whoever is able to solve it, is the chosen person that Satoshi expects to succeed,” an individual wrote in the bitcointalk.org conversation. “It’s like a place to determine Satoshi’s legacy for us in the future. Is this a contest? A pirate treasure?” he asked.'

I don't think so, if Satoshi stashed Bitcoin in a treasure hunt then computer scientists would have uncovered it by now.
I think either Satoshi Bitcoin holding is lost forever to protect the market or one day he is going to carry out an activity on the wallet holding those Bitcoin.

I think you didn't understand the question from the OP.
Of course If you lose your private keys to your wallet, how are you or someone would be able to "literally" donate it to someone If in the first place it cannot be accessed and just like you say "stucked in the blockchain".

If you go back and read what Loyce have quoted you'll probably understand why lost Bitcoins can be considered as donation to the holders.

Well, it sure is a donation.. and a very pricy one since I don't think it makes the much of an impact. Maybe it will pay off once we get close to the max supply. Either way I wouldn't want to be the one donating :P

Lost means its list for you. Not for others, because this is still in the Bitcoin blockchain. When a coin is stuck in a chain due to sending the wrong address or lost private keys mean circulation supply has been reducing which will lead to potential price up. So here LoyceV presented Satoshi quote which is true ever. It's like a donation to all holders since they get the benefits of reduced circulation.

However, I don't like this donation for me and others as well. It would be a pain forever.
 

If the owner of lost coins planned to never sell them and use them as a currency, then the loss wasn't really a donation, because those coins wouldn't have been dumped on the market anyway. Also, the market doesn't know if a coin is lost or not, no one can know that, aside from the owner. So the market can't react to, let's say some news that say "1,000 BTC was lost today".

Many people have lost their Bitcoins for various reasons. There are several ways to secure your Bitcoins, such as keeping the security code from being spread and really having to keep it a secret even with those closest to you. Bitcoin is a valuable asset that is hard to come by, so it would be a shame to lose it especially because you were deceived. But I don't think of this as a donation for everyone.

The smaller circulating supply is, the bigger price will be as when something is limited, it has additional value due to this fact. So actually, when someone loses his access to a wallet or just loses Bitcoin someway, they decreases Bitcoin offer and, as a result, the price of Bitcoin will be higher in case that demand remain at the same level.

Well, it's not like a lost diamond in the ocean. The amount of Bitcoins is limited to 21M. This is not a large number considering that theoretically it would be adopted as a popular form of payment in the world. When someone loses Bitcoin or a few or several thousand Bitcoins, it reduces its supply even more. This makes that in some micro scale (theoretically) increase its value, so it is a kind of a donation for everyone else who owns Bitcoins.

You can think of it like that. They've contributed that much since there's no way to retrieve those lost bitcoins forever so the value that they add to the economy is high.
And that's a guarantee that bitcoin won't be going to zero since the value of those lost bitcoins will stay in the market. So if there are still people that are telling you that, just smile at them if they don't know that there are lost bitcoins forever.

donation for what? How can holders get benefits from it? They were lost forever so if you think it can save the price of bitcoin from the fluctuation because of that reasons, stop it as it's very obvious that its still useless because big investors still have the power to manipulate the market even though there are some lost bitcoin in the space, they're affected as well indeed so its nothing in my personal opinion.

Lost bitcoins aren't really counted as a donation to other bitcoin holders because once a coin is lost due to human error, it cannot be benefited by anyone anymore. Unless, you have mistakenly sent the bitcoin to an active user, then just consider it as a donation and an experience you should learn upon. Lost bitcoins and other coins are trapped in the blockchain which cannot be retrieved, therefore no one will be able to utilize it. Meanwhile, those coins that are held in an account and then the owner suddenly forgets the seedphrase or password can no longer be accessed too. There is a very slim chance of getting your account back once you've forgotten the important information that are needed for you to open your account. There are some people who offer such retrieval services but most of them are probably scams.

The lost coins and impossible to recover accounts with coins just contribute to the basic supply and demand law. The moment either or both aforementioned situation happen, the supply will be little and the demand will be big, resulting to higher price value of the coin. I think this is more on contributing to the community and position status rather than being a donation.

Losing a coin or forgetting the significant details are very much saddening. I encountered many scenarios about it and I know it is indeed heart-wrenching to the owner. It's really needed for us to be careful and mindful whenever we make any transaction to avoid these kinds of losses. We are responsible for our own funds, hence we should do everything that we can to protect it.

Sadly, after so much time on the forum, you didn’t understand some basic things. Satoshi explained it in the simplest way, he is even quoted in this thread. In short, the total amount of Bitcoin that can exist is 21 million (more precisely a little less than that), so every lost Bitcoin reduces that number and makes Bitcoin more scarce. Imagine what the situation would be like today if Bitcoin was capped at 12 million or that number is 40 million?


Of course, they can manipulate the crypto market, just like any other market if you have a lot of money and knowledge on how to do it. Everyone wants Bitcoin to be more adaptable, to be available to everyone and everywhere - but not to be available to people who want to make money on it. I can only tell you that you can continue to live in illusion, or accept reality.

It will never be a donation as you need a recipient in order to call it a donation, the lost bitcoin are lost in circulation, which means the supply will decrease and our chances of getting more profitable in the future are higher. You should know the law of supply and demand, it pretty much applicable to crypto, especially with bitcoin.

no one will be responsible if you lose crypto such as bitcoin or others, because all of our own negligence and also cannot ask for a return personally too..
.who are responsible for ourselves, why do we have to make mistakes it all depends on us how to deal with our negligence.

First, you should know that bitcoin has a fixed supply and there is no way this supply can be increased. Now if we take the lost bitcoin out of the total supply, this will make bitcoin supply less practically. That lost bitcoins are of no use because no one can spend them or use them.

Well, in a kind of way you are right, money that are lost in cryptocurrency can’t be recovered, as long as the owners don’t have access to it again or they don’t have their private keys, there will be no way for it to be recovered.

So, it’s best that we see it as a donation to the Bitcoin blockchain or market, because those money are now like an investment that the users have decided to invest and leave it there, and is now part of the market and just stays there in form of a fund that is there to support the Bitcoin market. So, you have really made a point. But I know that those who have lost their bitcoins would be happy if they are to get access back into it, and they wouldn’t waste anytime at all in selling it, that I know for sure.

Why not give it to everyone? ...

As discussed by Andreas Antonopaolous in his video, there is a hypothetical scenario where lost bitcoins can be accessed but in the distant future; when SHA256 breaks apart due to rapid technological advancements.

Antonopoulos stated:

“The cryptographic keys and algorithms used in Bitcoin do not last forever [anyway]. At some point, the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) and SHA-256 will be obsolete. Maybe in ten or twenty years; certainly less than fifty years. They will no longer be strong enough to protect coins that haven’t been switched over to… a stronger cryptographic algorithm.”

Moreover, Antonopoulos added that the Bitcoin code needs to be recycled from time-to-time into better cryptographic algorithms; people with enough computing power should/could break keys and retrieve the lost coins. He also added that recovered BTC could act as ‘bounty’ for dedicating their resources.

“Essentially, it creates a bounty for testing the system, and rewards people who [exercise their skills].”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYtAevJIy5E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYtAevJIy5E)
Minute [4:20 - 7:50]

I don't think losing Bitcoin counts as a donation to Bitcoin holders. Instead I think this is due to carelessness so that their Bitcoin code is known to someone else and that person stole it. Therefore we must remain vigilant and be careful to keep the code secret to keep it safe. Do not easily trust others, even those closest to you. Humans can sometimes turn into animals because of urgent circumstances, especially in economic or financial matters.

The lost bitcoin will simply reduce the supply of the total coins that will ever be mined of 21 million and 90% has been mined till now.There are many other like him who have lost their keys holding million dollars worth of bitcoin in them but this simply increase the price with high demand and low supply the simple rule of economics.You can think of it as donation or anything but that surely shrink the supply overall.We will see how many can safely store it till last.

This is why i really wait everytime for Your reply , worth a read and made me think of how this related to the title of OP and perfectly Fit
about the Donation term used.

and that says a lot in my quoted post from loyce in which perfectly delivered by Satoshi 11 years before this thread was created .

Those that lost their bitcoin asset is a result of their carelessness. If they are been told before opening a bitcoin wallet to write down their private keys and store them up before opening a wallet, they end up neglecting the instruction, would they blame anyone for their misfortune tomorrow? I don't feel pity for those that lost their assets because if they do value bitcoin with their whole heart, they would have learned how to store up and keep their private keys safe.

Then, this helps the price of Bitcoin to keep high as the total supply has been cut while the demand is continuously moving high. As we can't assure that nobody lost their Bitcoin, their wallet keys, the possibility of getting into scarcity is very close to it. I think we don't need to have a moment to arrive and so we need to be careful of our keys. Or else, more Bitcoins become a donation and which we can't enjoy.

Perfectly right not only for the supply and the demand it also has a benefit to miners which they have more coins to mine, isn't it?
We have heard different cases on lost bitcoin and how it will be lost, lost private key that becomes bitcoin stuck on a wallet that can't access anymore.

That's why we should keep our bitcoin safe and copy the right private key to avoid being lost. It's hard to accept if one of your supposedly big asset has been lost and cannot access.

Forgotten bitcoin in a wallet is not lost but rather it will cause a decrease in it's supply there by increases it's supply there by giving it more value. But this doesn't say we should all forgot or lost our private keys for this to happen. It is also required that bitcoin must also be moving around just like fiat does and not just stay stagnant in a wallet doing nothing.

If someone loses his private keys, he no longer has access to those coins. Those coins are lost coins. Again, if coins are sent to addresses that no one has access to the private keys, then those are also considered as lost bitcoins. And yep, it is kind of a donation to everyone because the supply is limited, lost coins reduces the circulating supply even further more, causing bitcoin to become even more scarce which eventually will cause the price to increase. So everyone holding bitcoin will benefit from the price rise.

still it is Lost , because none can actually access the funds though you are correct and this will add value to the remaining coins and decrease the remaining volume .
actually like what Satoshi says(According to Loyce quoted post of satoshi) this will be a donation to the other Holders because surely the price will increase and this will favor the investors and bitcoin owners.
It is noticeable , because now that we are almost done mining every bitcoin(actually long years more but small amount remains) sure the price is not in increasing scenario.

It is human nature to make mistakes But only God is free of all kinds of faults. So it happens that sometimes we lose or forget the keys, password, or seed of our wallet. If there is bitcoin in huge quantity. Then it will affect the supply and value of bitcoin. And in routine, if you are not opening your wallet for 10 or more years. There will happen something. These bitcoins may be included in the supply chain in the form of donating someone or distributing or in some other shape.

hi? bitcoin that will lost by accident (lost private key, send to wrong address) can't be refunded, and the bitcoin will stay in that address forever, its mean that the wallet will be locked, until people input the right private key to access it, so if you say that lost bitcoin are the donation for the bitcoin holders, i think it is the wrong statement

Yeah in the end in certainly does make bitcoin more scarce of course, which makes all of our bitcoin more valuable.  I have once done the same myself.  I sent maybe like .1 or .2 to the wrong address and now it's gone to the "abyss".  This is of course extremely frustrating still to this day to me.  Especially since I just lost some Matic trying to send it to my binance account and apparently had the wrong network selected.  Be careful out there people, it's easy to mess these things up  :'(

One of the things I always think about is what happens to the lost Bitcoin will there ever get opened and will the wallet keys ever going to get a review and use to get access to the wallets.

Lost bitcoin cannot be recovered because there is no way of refund.
So in case of wrong address it can be considered as a gift or donation for someone who has gained it .
By losing the seed phrase of a wallet it becomes unaccessible for other person but may be accessible for the company who is managing that wallet so it can be considered as a great loss for us.

That's not true if the wallet you are using is a non-custodial wallet, but that can be done with a custodial wallet. This means that when you lose access to a custodial wallet, you can still ask a third party support (wallet controller) to recover your fund, but since a non-custodial wallet gives you complete control, you can't do anything but just give up. A non-custodial wallet is recommended because you are in control of your fund, but you are not recommended to use a custodial wallet if you are concerned about the security of your fund.

If you want Bitcoin to succeed as a useful and functional currency over the long term, every lost Bitcoin is detrimental to the overall currency. Not only does it mean wasted energy used to generate it, but it means that the usability of Bitcoin diminishes over time as we end up with smaller and smaller denominations if the price is expected to rise. People talk about currency inflation in fiat as being a bad thing, you could argue that this sort of currency deflation is equally bad for Bitcoin - no speculative investor is likely to agree with this point though because they want the price to go up so they can offload for a profit. It all depends on whether you see Bitcoin as virtual gold which should never be touched or want it to be used in every day transactions.

In a way donated Bitcoins in this manner acts as a positive force on demand, as the lost amount can be considered a burn - a token mechanic used by many projects these days to increase the scarcity of their token and boost token value.

There isn't much of an option if you lost your Bitcoin but to accept the fate and consider it gone or donated to the ecosystem. It is frustrating for the user but there's nothing else one can do to recover the funds, so might as well accept it.

Lost Bitcoin then can be said to be an unofficial burn as the coins can no longer be used and locked out of the market and this will lead to a reduction in the total supply of the coin because the wallet will forever remain inaccessible.

This is just on point with my resolution about the usefulness of lost bitcoin to the forum and every crypto hodler. Becuase, it makes the supply to be in limited supply. Else, it would have been such a waste to have lost btc to some private key or seed phrase storage.
Yeah that's quite a tr becuase, it wasn't entirely decade out of the system nor can you say it is lost from the system but, its in accessibility and usage is due to the lost of seed phrase or private key.

IMO, Satoshi didn't predict it. If you checked again why he made that statement, he was trying to respond virtualcoin's post at that time. And I am sure, since the beginning Satoshi was aware of the possibility of losing Bitcoins on the wallets because of hacking, forgetting wallet passwords/security keys/private keys, or other problems.

What you do mean about donation to Bitcoin holders?

Those bitcoin holders  you do mean is to those people who had acquired and owned bitcoin itself and to those lost bitcoin then it has nothing to do with them thats why whenever a coin is lost neither been
lost private keys or hadnt able to access out t heir wallets or simply the owner had died then  consider those coins to be totally lost in void which simply means that
overall supply had decrease and when demand is getting higher then the more valuable it is.

That's why some Bitcoin holders are very happy to know if a Bitcoin is missing. Because it can be said to be like burning coins, meaning that it can
make the price of Bitcoin go up. Therefore we must be careful to keep the Bitcoins we have, and if we have large amounts of Bitcoin, it's best if
someone close to us knows about it. Because if we die the Bitcoin we have will not be lost, but it can be useful for our family. Then store passwords
and private keys in a safe place, most cases people lose Bitcoin, that's because they forgot their password or private keys.

Supporting this post , Because the amount that had been gone in the wind will added value to the Bitcoin in existence meaning all Holders and Miners will benefit from this, and i believe that this has been mentioned by Satoshi in the past like what loyce shared above.
also this is the reason that if we don't wanna give our precious bitcoin to others then we must make sure that our funds will be keep safe and will have beneficiaries if ever something happens to us badly in the future.
letting our important love once to know our Private keys so in case they can still claim our funds.

the accident of losing a bitcoin wallet key address is of particular concern to those of us who are in the crypto market. so many people ignore such incidents as a result of disappointment and loss of a very valuable asset. loss of bitcoin assets cannot be said to have donated bitcoin assets to other people, because bitcoin holders cannot access our assets, aka burning bitcoin assets.

Once you lose a bitcoin which means that you lose the access to the wallet whose recovery is not guaranteed, and it  is lost forever. They can’t be accessed by anyone so bitcoin is not donated rather it is lost which is the wastage of energy.