Bitcoin Forum

The reason for this question is that I just wanted to know if after losing one's bitcoin, will it be accredited to the number of Bitcoin mine even if the wallet can never be recovered

If Yes then can't the wallet be trace back Afterall it is possible to see the number of Bitcoin own by an unknown individual through bitcoin Blockchain and with the years of dormancy of the address its possible to know if the wallet address might be lost and if the address as been long (like 2010, 2011 or 2012) such address could easily be hacked because it likely an Hot wallet and security was not that strait

If you mean self-custody(hot or cold) wallet, it can't. The only recovery is manually, by going directly to the thief and making him willing to send it back. However it is hard to imagine, your address only shows traces of tx input-output in the explorer, meaning it can be traced but not easily identified as to who it belongs to.

1. No matter a wallet is lost or not, the coins will remain on the address they belong to, no matter what. And that's because there are many cases that addresses from very long ago are actually not lost (one example is collectibles / funded Casascius coins). And if bitcoin would implement a way to get those coins, that would be stealing.
2. You say that those addresses can be easily hacked, still, I've didn't hear of any such hack. Do you actually have any proper info that can back this assumption of yours?

You seem very confused and it shows in the way you asked your questions. It's difficult to follow your thought process.

To spend bitcoins, you need the signing keys - the private keys for the address they are on. Nowadays with HD wallets, we use seeds and don't have to worry about individual private keys. The software takes care of that. If you don't have your keys/seed, you can't spend your coins. A completely lost seed or private key is unrecoverable. If some characters or words are missing, you might be able to bruteforce it.

The only way you could spend coins where you no longer possess the keys/seed is it you still have access to to the wallet they are imported in. If everything is lost, your coins are out of your reach.

LOL, you are completely wrong in your assumptions mate,
First, the number of years a wallet is left for dormancy does not tell whether that wallet has been abandoned or not, there are many who are really good holders, they can buy, withdraw to their private wallet and forget they ever bought bitcoin, until several years to come.

Secondly, non-custodial wallets are not easy to hack, infant, a hacker can not hack into a non-custodial wallet without having access to the wallet's private keys or seed phrase, so if the real Owner of the wallet have lost his or her wallet private keys, the hacker must have to have the same lost private keys to gain access into the wallet.

And to answer the question in general, bitcoins that are truly lost cant be recovered, except by miracle, someone comes in contact with the correct private keys or seed phrase that unlocks the wallet that contains the supposed lost bitcoin.

Knowing how possible it is to recover a bitcoin wallet will totally depend on how much info we have concerning the private keys. If we know literally nothing and without having access to the owner's previous device, then the chances is pretty much zero.

OP, there are a lot of misconceptions in your question. So, let me try and explain it in simpler terms for you.

Basically, if a wallet is lost and the private keys cannot be recovered, then the bitcoins allocated to that wallet are essentially lost forever. They cannot be credited to any other account or used in any way.

Now, you also asked about tracing the wallet back. While transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain are public and can be traced, it's still really hard to figure out who a lost wallet belongs to, especially if it hasn't been used in years. That's why, for example, we can't know for sure which wallets belonged to Satoshi.

I see you also mentioned something about hot wallets. But just to let you know, that's not necessarily true. There are actually different kinds of "cold" wallets out there, not just hardware wallets, if that's what you meant. And lastly, Bitcoin wallets cannot be easily hacked, no matter how old they are.

Even before the coin got to your possession it has already been added to the number of mined coin so whether you loss your private key or not doesn't affect the number and again Blockchain does not identify a wallet whose key has been misplaced and then just remove it from record. Op that's not how it works Bitcoin is immutable.


Your public address tells you nothing about your private key so you can search through the Blockchain and see previous transactions and trace whatever you want to trace but that's still not going to take you to your private key you'll only just end up wasting your time and even if your public address fall into the hands of hacker all they are going to do is to monitor your transaction; what goes in and what leaves nothing more than that.

The issue of accreditation is not an issue, there are 21million bitcoin mined already these are the numbers that will ever exist and nothing more nothing less  Nevertheless, all bitcoin can be traced or tracked via bitcoin explorer which is built on the bitcoin blockchain. This explorer enables individual to have a clue of transaction destination which stands or serves as evidence of payment or issuance however the case maybe. However dormant wallet addresses are mostly accounts holding for long. Some of those wallet you see that has big volume of bitcoin in them and have not done any traceable transaction can likely be seen as a hodler account in which the owner have been holding for a long time. Off lately there have been series of accounts hodling bitcoin for long that have been activated with bitcoin transferred. You should not be worried about that as it does not affect the total supply of bitcoin.

No, once a wallet is lost the coins contained in them cannot be returned into the bitcoin circulation. No one has control over the network to access lost Bitcoins recirculate them.

The wallet can be traced and the funds checked, but without the private keys no one can access the Bitcoins in them.
And no, you cannot determine an address to be lost cause of certain years of dormancy.

- Jay -

Obviously, it is already included in the number of Bitcoin mined.  Mined Bitcoin will always appear on the circulating coins, whether it is active or idle.


The wallet address can be traced back and is recorded on the blockchain explorer.  But I do not think that someone can crack your private key or seed phrases once it is lost.  About knowing whether a wallet address is lost or not , I can say no one will know but the owner who lost the access himself.

You can only spend bitcoin if there is access to the private key. If you don't have that, then no matter where you send it and how you send it, it cannot be recovered.

Also, lost coins don't reenter the circulation. They wouldn't be called lost if they were. And to extend it further, you can't prove someone accidentally lost his coins, because you can't prove inaccessibility to certain private key; only the opposite.

OP this can mean two different things on each scenario, the first is that if you got scammed of your bitcoin on the wallet you're using due to poor management or handling of your keys or using a low reputable centralized exchange that turn a scam, here your fund cannot be recovered when stolen, lost or hacked, the second one is that if you sent your bitcoin to a wrong wallet address, just forget it as well because it is not recoverable as well, so in general, any lost bitcoin us not recoverable.

One the wallet had lost its seed by its owner then there's no way on accessing or getting back and it would really be lost forever and considering on how many lost coins in the entire chain then there's nothing we could do about it.Tending to bruteforce it? If its possible then lots had already that tried but still failed on this one.This is why when you do own a wallet then you should really be that mindful about keeping those keys
as much as possible and away from other people because hacking and losing funds could really be in result into those lots of possible reasons.
This is why we should really be that careful.

No, it will be forever lost.
If bitcoins are lost and cannot be recovered, they will remain on the blockchain forever. This means that they will not be accessible to anyone, and they will not be able to be used or spent. Over time, these lost bitcoins will become increasingly rare, which may have an impact on the value of the remaining bitcoins in circulation because they will be stuck forever in that wallet not unless someone has a private key stored on a backup, the user may be able to restore the wallet and regain access to their bitcoins. So at this this point --the private key is the most important of storing bitcoin.

If you lost your private key, you lost your bitcoins, forever. Bitcoin is not a centralized project and blockchain like altcoins so it is impossible to revert the bitcoin blockchain, ban an address or seize it to credit to another one. It's impossible.

It was asked in 2010 and Satoshi Nakamoto aka satoshi (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3) in bitcointalk, answered it as follows

Difficult to understand what you are saying here, but yes if you get hack and your bitcoin is transferred to another wallet then the custody belongs to the hackers already. Although you can see it in blockchain and trace it, but if the hackers knows how to obfuscated then you will come to a dead end. Remember that addresses doesn't have the name, so even if you have the address of the hackers, their identity will remain hidden.

If someone loses their Bitcoin by losing access to their wallet or private keys, those Bitcoin are not credited to the number of Bitcoin mined.
It is possible to trace transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, but if someone loses access to their wallet or private keys, it is unlikely that the lost Bitcoin can be recovered. Even if an address has been dormant for a long time, it does not necessarily mean that the wallet has been lost.

I believe we saw more hacks from phishing compared to private key brute forcing. Unless you're talking about brain wallet, which has been abandoned/discouraged from long ago. Also, why did you assume the security is not that good in the past? Did you assume we improve the way we generate private keys/seeds or something? Even if that is true unless the hacker obtains an unencrypted wallet file, he still needs a lot of time cracking them and it is probably not worth their time. Sending fake e-mails are more cost-effective for them afaik.

If you lost Bitcoin in a wallet you can't recover it because you have no access to your wallet. So always we should keep our private keys in a safe place where there is no risk to be hacked or stolen or forgotten.

After the loss of your bitcoins in a wallet, it is normal that you begin to feel desperate and will want to still find out ways for you to recover these bitcoins. It is not possible just as you have been told here already, and you should be careful too with how desperate you become so your desperation is not taken advantage of and you get scammed in the process of trying to recover what is already lost by individuals who can disguise as professionals who handle bitcoin lost in wallet related cases and demand a fee for their services.

Point of correction, you cannot lose your bitcoin because it remains safe in your noncustodial wallet, which can't easily be hacked. You can only lose access to your bitcoin, when you have lost your private keys or phrase seed which should be kept safe and properly backed up. You can lose your bitcoin if you keep it in an exchange i.e a custodial wallet,who controls your keys for you or send it mistakenly to a wrong address. You can only trace the tx I.d which your bitcoin was transferred to if it was hacked but you can't identify the thief because bitcoin remains anonymous.

If a person loses the private key or recovery phrases, the password, and all security methods, he can't be able to recover his wallet that contains bitcoins, and these bitcoins will be present in the address of this wallet forever without anyone being able to control them, so the most critical point in owning bitcoins It is to be able to save the methods of recovering your wallet after years have passed on it and store that information in safe places that you can access later. I have friends who lost millions of dollars in bitcoins after losing the security information of their wallets. They have already regretted that they underestimated keeping this important information in Hardware or USB Flash Drive drive or in a paper note, etc. It is worth noting that no one can recover or hack someone's wallet after that person has lost the ways to recover the wallet.

Bitcoin will not vanish, its always there and wallet is like accessing gate to your bitcoin so if you lost the keys and you can't open the door which means what's inside there will remain there until someone find the keys.

Everything on Bitcoin blockchain is transparent and can't be erased no matter what so with the wallet address anyone can see the complete transaction history of the address.

If you lost access to the wallet it means you lost the coins on the wallet forever,  only the private keys /seed phrase give you access and ownership of the wallet.

-There are a lot of lost coins resulting from the inability to access the wallet, and every lost coin is regarded as a gift for the remaining bitcoin circulating supply and Bitcoin more scarce.

Can be easily hacked? do you believe it? the security of Hot Wallet or something like that will definitely improve, no matter if it's a 2011 wallet or even an older wallet. It will not affect the security of the wallet.

What is the main key is the Seed phrase, when you can have it then you can open the wallet, but if you only imagine that you will hack a wallet with a large number of bitcoins and never move, it is just a fantasy that will not happen.

No one will be able to recover their Bitcoins when the Seed Pharse is lost and has no backup, it will just be a wallet that won't move anymore.
But if you have a broken device such as a Hardware Wallet and it is physically damaged and lost, but you have a backup of the Seed Phrase, it is still possible to restore it.

The only one that can move the coins out of an address is whoever has access to the private keys of that address, if for some reason you lost them then those coins are lost unless you recover those keys, in addition you are completely mistaken about this idea that just because some coins have not moved for a long time they are somehow lost, also coins not moving that long do not imply they are in a hot wallet, in fact it implies the opposite, as the people that adopted bitcoin back then were more technical savvy than the average user of today.

Impossible, except for the wallet you said you had already transferred, and what makes you a little safer is that you didn't send it to the wrong address, in the sense that you transferred it to another wallet, maybe when you send to the wrong address this can be sure you have lost your assets completely, maybe the way is only to find the position and who owns the wallet, I don't think this is an easy job, it can be said that it is very difficult.

Maybe we can track it down just by knowing the amount that is there and listed in the search, but finding the identity of the owner of course we can't, or you can be sure that you will lose all of the amount you transferred.

If your bitcoin wallet is lost then you can be restored by your private keys and this private keys are associated with your wallet but if yuo also lost private keys then there is no chance to recovered your wallet back because the bitcoin network operates on a decentralized and fixed ledger, its means that once a transaction is recorded on the blockchain, it cannot be changed or reversed. The private keys are kind of passwords that give access to the bitcoins in a wallet and without private keys the bitcoins cannot be moved. If the private keys are lost there is no way to access the bitcoins in the wallet and they will be permanently locked.
This is why it is crucial to exercise great caution.

If we have lost the Bitcoin from our wallet, it means it is hacked or thieved by certain people. It is very difficult take it back and it is cannot be done.
Or if we lost the private key to access the wallet or whatever important data to access the wallet, it also means that we will lose the Bitcoin on the wallet.
No keys, not your assets. That is how one of the risks of Bitcoin or crypto investment.
that is why it is always stated to be more careful n Bitcoin or cryptocurrency investment from any malware, scammers, hackers, and also losing private key data.

Lost coins due to forgotten privatekeys or the owner of such wallet didnt remember or had forgotten about it then it would be considered to be lost forever and this is why that we cant really be having that
full 21M coins in circulation considering that there are lots coins on the entire supply which means the lesser the coins in circulation the more valuable it is but of course it would really be depending
on its demand.Just like the rest been saying that when it comes to recovery, if its sitting on a custodial wallet then it could be possible but if its a decentralized wallet then its 101% guaranteed
that there's no way on getting it back.

Yes, there is no way to get our bitcoins back if we lose the private key or seed phrase. That is one of the advantages of bitcoin as well as its disadvantages. No one can touch your bitcoins while you hold your keys, but if you are careless you will also bury your own bitcoins with no way of getting it back.