Bitcoin Forum

I read some old threads about lost Bitcoins ND this question has been on my mind ever since
If the lost Bitcoins were for instance recovered will the price of Bitcoin drop  because in theory it would affect the amount of Bitcoin in circulation which will lower it's price . I saw in those threads that lost Bitcoins are considered a donation to the Bitcoin network. so if my theory is correct then we should be happy those Bitcoins were lost.

Actually price depends on many things and not on just supply in circulation.

Only if all those lost bitcoins are made available for sale on exchanges, then they can effect the price.

With growing demand of btc even if all 21m BTC are available for sell even then price can stay at current level or goes up.
That said, it is nearly impossible to recover those lost bitcoins . Imagine someone has lots of BTC in his wallet and he forgets is recovery Passphrass Or he lost his hardware wallet, then in this and many other such situations, coins are lost for good.

The coins are considered lost for a reason. If they could be recovered then they would not be lost. However, answering your question would mean that the developers had done something to recirculate coins that haven’t been touched in some time, resulting in a loss of faith in Bitcoin itself and causing the price to crash to nearly worthless.

I would not be happy that someone lost the private keys to their BTC.

There is no way to know the exact number of BTC's that are lost, some people don't move their BTC's for years and it does not mean that they are lost. And how many actually lost private keys are suddenly going to be found and liquidated for it to make the price of BTC drop, i don't know what your theory is, but this is a non-issue that does not deserve a topic of its own.

You have started many topics recently, slow down and read.

I hope that no one loses their Bitcoin, and I wouldn't be pleased either, even though it might benefit other Bitcoin holders. The loss of your Bitcoin wouldn't significantly impact the price, as it would be an insignificant amount in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, you shouldn't worry unless you manage to recover all the lost Bitcoin, which is unlikely. The price of Bitcoin is determined by its circulation and demand, not solely by its supply.

It goes like this.

Whether there will be lost bitcoins or not that will be up for sale and it's a huge volume. There will be for sure an effect to the price of Bitcoin. Not just that, there will be more force if the media is going to publish these sell offs as it's gonna put pressure to many retail holders.

And from there, the news that's disseminated will impact to everyone that's also gonna feel bad about it.

But let's take the reality of these lost bitcoins, they won't be called lost if they're not lost entirely. It's good that there's this take that these lost bitcoins are lost forever and instead of a drop that it will contribute, the value from each of those will be retained.

Why should you rejoice over someone losing access to their Bitcoin, I think it's rather sad seeing that event happening and how can Bitcoin which can't be accessed be considered lost, I don't know so much about this logic on exchanges but if you have a private wallet and you can't get to it then I believe it's lost for good.

There are people who hasn't had access to their Bitcoin for years but when they check the address of the wallet they still see the amount of Bitcoin they own

I have actually created a thread a while ago.

Feel free to check it out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5446374.0

It could be like that, although in this time and age, the number of coins in circulation doesn't affect the price action that much. There are a lot of factors that add up to the overall valuation of bitcoin, and available supply is one of them. Say for instance, the lost coins were to be found, would those owners want to let it go at the current price? Would they bring those coins into the market ready for sale? If not, then nothing changed, basically. They are still artificially limiting the available supply of bitcoin in the market by keeping those at their disposal.

Actually, it's not your theory but Satoshi's. He said that lost Bitcoin should be considered a donation to the Bitcoin technology or network.
For your question, it depends on the amount of Bitcoin that is being discovered. If it's a huge amount of Bitcoin that is being discovered and all is being placed on sale, then it definitely will fall the market a bit but not the Bitcoin network, after some months or a year, the market can still begin to recover again. Some months ago, there was a huge amount of Bitcoin discovered from a hacker; I can't remember the figure accurately, but I guess it was about 50,000 Bitcoin, and then the price of 1 Bitcoin was still trading below $30k, but look at Bitcoin today; the price is up again.



Cheers 🥂, Dr.Bitcoin_Strange 👺👺

How do we even know the lost bitcoin and differentiate it from the bitcoin in the strongest hands.
I have seen in many situations that the bitcoin found in a certain address was tagged lost by many people, but after so many years it got moved to a hot wallet.  Let us just assume that no bitcoin is lost and have a peace of mind.
However, the success of bitcoin doesn't depend on the amount of lost bitcoin. There is no need to bother ourselves much about that.

The amount of bitcoins lost so far is negligible, and if all of them are found and recovered from their former owners, it will be good news for them. In terms of price, if they sell, it will affect the bitcoin price in the short term, but in the long run, it will have no effect. Supply affects the price of a coin, but it is not the only factor, most rely on demand for pricing. Look at ETH it has an unlimited supply, but its value is not small.

Yes it would cause the price of Bitcoin to go down. Imagine if satoshi starts to unload his coins. Obviously people would panic and sell since he owns tons of coins.

Back on those days a coinbase block reward was 50Btc that alone is over a million dollars. Back then you didn’t need much power to mine a block that like. So if some old miner recovers his wallet and starts to dump 1000 BTC then obviously Bitcoin will drop.  

Panic in the crowd is biggest effect. People who get access to old bitcoins that are considered as lost bitcoins will not be stupid to dump all their bitcoins in one sell order on the market. They will do it in OTC market, not at centralized market and will not do that in a single day.

With whale alerts from on-chain trackers and quick speed of new circulation on social media, the crowd will feel very panic when they see massive amount of old bitcoins on the move from old address to new addresses or read speculation and fud that those old bitcoins will be dumped on market soon.

If I own very old bitcoins and recovered my access to those bitcoins recently, I will do my research on how to sell those coins with less effects on market price as possible. It will help me to maximize my profit so I will spend time to think about selling strategy.

It's only work in theory, but the reality isn't always like that.

Let's assume someone have recovered his 10,000 BTC, do you think he will sell all of his coins when he already have a good job or business that he can make good amount of money? most likely he will only sell small piece as low as 1 BTC to congrats himself and continue to hold the rest.

We shouldn't only happy for people who're lost their coins, but we should be happy for people who're keep holding Bitcoin regardless the price is.

a decline that occurs only if the Bitcoin is sold in large quantities and follows the market price. it will certainly make a decline that could have happened in a very short time.
especially if there is prior confirmation that one of the wallets with large enough Bitcoin ownership transferred their Bitcoin to the exchange wallet. this can create negative sentiment leading to panic selling. indirectly the price will decrease either periodically or instantaneously.

If you lost your bitcoins, would you be happy? With this in mind, I believe that when you lose your bitcoins, many other people will be happier instead of sending you condolences.

But it is not wrong to assume that the scarcer the supply of bitcoins, the higher the price of bitcoin will increase, and if in case those lost bitcoins are recovered, it will definitely negatively affect the bitcoin price. But in my opinion, that effect is negligible in the long run as we still only have 21 million bitcoins for 8 billion people. In my opinion, 21 million bitcoins is not enough for the world if bitcoin is legal and in demand like gold.

Let me correct you a bit, I think this lost coins are already in circulation since they are mined, they are actually part of the 19 million plus coins in circulation. So in logic the only way they say it makes others bitcoin slightly worth more is because it is not sold off and the only way a price is affected is when the coin is sold off, as more of it is sold off it would reduce the demand which will Also affect the price. So if a large amount of bitcoin is recovered today and the institution or investor decides to sell them off then would shake the price. This too will just be a temporary shake just like those that happens when a big exchange runs into problem and people start selling off their bitcoin.

This price dump will only be for a short period because ones the buyers of these coins, save them up and hold on to them again, then they begin to go scarce again and the price will return to normal price

Consider this. Recovered Bitcoins could increase supply and potentially lead to a price drop, yes. But we need to recognize that Bitcoin's value proposition isn't based purely on its scarcity. It's also about its security, decentralized nature, and potential as a hedge against inflation. Being assertive here, I want to say that the wretched loss of Bitcoins is unfortunate, but not something we should celebrate. Lost Bitcoins don't "donate" to the network; they merely reduce the circulating supply. So, being skeptical about your theory, I'd say let's not cheer on these losses. Instead, let's use these incidents to remind ourselves of the importance of secure storage practices. After all, it's better to be melodramatically safe than to be painfully sorry.

Lost Bitcoins come from wallets with lost private keys, so those coins come off from the available liquid market and cannot be sold till someone gets the private keys. Assuming they sell the coins and if the amount is a significant one, only then the market might drop.

The person who lost the coins will not be happy about it. The rest of the people can be - however that is a very malevolent thing to say, being happy on someone's loss.

Hence we should always know how to keep our coins safe and not leak the keys to any site or person

It will not happen the way you are thinking because if someone would recover his lost btc the price won't ve affected much because all of them are not selling at the same time when they recovered it.As per reports more then 4M coins have been lost so do you think all of them would be able to recover it? On the other side the supply is shrinking as well so prices will be determined by supply and demand at that time.

Will you be happy if it were your bitcoins that were lost? will you be the one to want to contribute to the bitcoin network like you have said? loss of bitcoins is not something that you should be happy about even when you are not the one affected, some people who have lost their bitcoins could not find the courage to start gathering up what they have lost especially when the bitcoins lost is big and have taken some time and dedication for the person to gather up to what he had.

Exactly. Also, the lower the total amount, the fewer people will be able to accumulate a whole bitcoin. It's kinda sad that Bitcoin is limited to 21 million, and it's absolutely impossible to recover lost coins.

It depends on what you mean by those coins being recovered, people forget or lose their seed words all the time, and they also recover them with some frequency, so if we are talking just about this process then this will not really affect the price that much as there is enough volume to allow those coins to circulate again.

But if you are talking about the developers changing the code to recover those coins, then the price of bitcoin will drop like a rock, but not because of the number of coins recovered, but by the act itself of changing the code to get those coins back, which goes against the most basic principles of bitcoin.

I wouldn't be happy if someone lost bitcoins because they lost their private key.
and lost bitcoins only slightly increase the value of bitcoins remaining on the network but depending on how big they are, they can be divided indefinitely, so losing bitcoins does not harm the network as a whole.
and in addition, because bitcoin derives value from its very limited supply, each bitcoin lost slightly increases the value of the remaining bitcoins on the network. And lost bitcoins never come back forever, and if you manage to find them then sell them, it will affect the price of bitcoins and if you don't, it won't affect it.

Bitcoin has a maximum total supply, which has already created and no additional Bitcoin is going to create, in time's of lost Bitcoin wallet has no meaning if it replaced as long no additional Bitcoin going to be created but rather using the reserve to feel the gab of the lost wallet, I don't think such can exist, because lost of Bitcoin is a result of lost of private key, password and devices used to store your Bitcoin, in the near future Bitcoin will taken advantage of lost to keep increasing in price, because of scarcity in the cryptocurrency market.

It wound't affect the price unless they sold them, however this does make BTC even more rare! There is a story to all of these lost coins, if only Bitcoin could tell the story for us on which coins were lost how and by whom. We know for sure there is a couple million on a usb drive in a trash dump somewhere, lol poor guy.

The answer to that question is of the total bitcoin recovered is swapped into fiat at a low price that may affect the price of Bitcoin for a while but after then Bitcoin will move on and continue its market penetration because even Satoshi foresaw this and that is why he stated that bitcoin should be allowed to grow organically.
So it depends on what the recovered lost bitcoin which is 99% impossible is used for because if the holder of the recovered bitcoin decides to continue holding it then means there won't be any impact of that on the price of Bitcoin.

Should we be happy because someone lost bitcoin (even if it was in the distant past and at a low cost)? Where is your compassion? :)

I wouldn't call it donations to the bitcoin network, but rather forced and accidental "burning", as did with bnb, to reduce the number of tokens in circulation and increase demand. Also, there is a possibility that this "burning" may be temporary if ways are found in the future to gain access to lost wallets with these btc.

You should not fill your head with such rubbish, because at the moment these lost bitcoin can't affect the current price of it in any way (which I'm sure not very soon). After all, the fact is that bitcoin in the world can be only 21 million, which is quite a bit for the population of the entire planet.

It has no effect on bitcoin unless there is a sale. Only Bitcoin becomes more valuable. In the long run, nothing will change.

As the message I quoted states, I wouldn't look at it as a donation. When it comes to bitcoin lost by a person, it would not be right to look at it this way. I don't think it's possible to find lost wallets, but it would be nice if there was such a way.

There is a lot of knowledge to learn and a lot of room to improve in the crypto world. Don't preoccupy your mind with such things. Find other hobbies and improve yourself.

If Bitcoin is lost due to hacking it will affect the price, but if Bitcoin is lost because we forgot the password when we store in a wallet then OTU will not affect the price, and the rise and fall of Bitcoin is caused by many things both because of negative news and other problems this greatly affects the value of Bitcoin, although the theory as you said is correct but no one is happy with losing their Bitcoin because it is a very valuable asset, If we want the price of Bitcoin to increase then wait there must be a time because the value of Bitcoin always changes.

Bitcoins that are truly lost can't be recovered, thats the beautiful and most important thing, so practically and technically, there is no way those bitcoins can be sold..

So let's say that, some how, some way, those bitcoin are recovered and added into circulation, it can only affect the price of bitcoin negatively if their owners decides to sell everything, which I don't think is also possible, some will sell and some will still hold for bigger price.

But again, the above is nothing but speculations, the real fact is that bitcoin that are truly lost are lost forever and can't be recovered by their owners under normal circumstances.

I don't think that there is any lost bitcoin somewhere or I would be happy if someone losses his bitcoin. When you can't access your wallet due to you forgetting your passphrase doesn't mean that your bitcoin is lost,your bitcoin will be lying idle in your wallet. Whenever,you have remembered your passphrase or password or you have seen your seedphrase,you will be able to do whatever that you like with your bitcoin. I guess that the only way that your bitcoin can get lost is when you send it to a wrong address and the receiver choose not to send it back to you. Lost bitcoin wouldn't affect Bitcoin price because Bitcoin price is being controlled by demand and the rate of adoption.

If the lost coins were able to be recovered with methods other than finding or retrieving the seed phrase, then Bitcoin would die because that would mean that its possible to find out the seed phrase with other methods (which is currently thought to be an impossible thing to do). In such a case, anyone could get access to any wallet. There would be no point in buying Bitcoin and the people who already own Bitcoin would not be able to sell it. Their money would be lost forever.

But thats a hypothetical situation which is not possible. Even if one were to use a new generation of quantum computer, Bitcoin has safeguards against any known method of brute-forcing seed phrases or otherwise.

Not that it has not been tried, without success. ;D

It is not sad that it is impossible to recover lost BTC's, because it is impossible to be sure that certain BTC's are lost, if there was a way to recover lost BTC it'll destroy the system and people's coins in cold storage that hasn't moved for years will be said to be lost and stolen.

Satoshi designed BTC to be a scarce asset with a fixed supply, that's the uniqueness of BTC and the reason why there will always be demand for it, don't feel sad about that, buy it and don't sell it to others. ;)

In some cases, the loss of bitcoin can benefit other bitcoin holders, but this is not an ideal way for the price of bitcoin to rise. The loss of bitcoin also doesn't have much of an impact on the price, as it only makes up a small percentage of the total supply. The price of Bitcoin is usually determined by factors such as circulation and market demand. Protecting and securing your personal bitcoins is very important to avoid unnecessary losses and keep your assets safe.

Well, recovering lost or forgotten coins is one thing but getting to sell them is another which could have a different impact on market price.

But it's not like they will be selling them immediately ???

Besides this whole coins in circulation doesn't always mean crypto users are selling or buying all coins available at every given chance, some coins remain untouched but are still counted to be in circulation..so not much of a difference will be made unless they are selling 10,000 Bitcoins to have an instant impact.

Can not be a donation when access to them isn't available,  besides some users have been lucky to remember or figure out the whereabouts of their private keys, so consider these to be dormant coins that can awaken at any time and not donations!

Recovering it will not affect the price of Bitcoin but selling it will. But ofcourse it depends on the amount of Bitcoin recovered that will be dump in the market to determine if this will gonna impact the price since Bitcoin liquidity is already huge compared before when exchaneg doesn’t have enough liquidity to absorb sell pressure on Bitcoin. There’s already company invested billion dollar on Bitcoin. Recovered Bitcoin is not a problem at all unless it’s the Bitcoin of Satoshi since it’s a huge chunk and it will make Bitcoin holders doubt Bitcoin since the founder already sold his holdings like what happened to LTC when Charlie Lee sold all of his asset.

I think it is hard to predict how the price would react if lost bitcoin was recovered. bitcoin price depends lot of calculations. we simply call it supply and demand. so I think if we recover lost bitcoins and sell them. it will affect the bitcoin price. because around 3 to 4 million bitcoins are unrecoverable. it is equal to USD 140 Billion. if this selling power comes to market no doubt it will surely affect the market.
https://originstamp.com/blog/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-lost/

as your theory lost bitcoins are considered donations to the bitcoin network. I don't think so. I think you may have gotten the wrong info or missed something. lost bitcoins are unrecoverable and do not contribute to the bitcoin network.

I mean if you can recover all of the lost bitcoin it will not go to affect the market price of bitcoin unless you're going to sell all of it in the market, that is surely going to affect it since there is a huge amount of lost bitcoin as well as bitcoin as wasn't been moved for years if all of a sudden this huge Bitcoin was sold in the market it would easily affect the market price of Bitcoin and potential make the market price drop easily. It is surely kind of a good thing knowing that there is a huge amount of Bitcoin that is already lost and cannot be recovered by anyone, it is going to make the Bitcoin supply low and that is going to increase the demand in the end.

So this lost bitcoin is a good help on the supply of Bitcoin but at the same time could drop the market if a huge number of Bitcoin will be recovered, I remember reading something about the lost bitcoin that is own but Satoshi if it was recovered this day it is surely going to drop the market price of bitcoin a huge percentage.

No one knows exactly how many bitcoins have been lost forever, every now and then there are thousands of bitcoins that suddenly move again after being inactive for a lot of years and usually it's not a problem for the price. I would only be worried if one day Satoshi's bitcoins will be on the move again...

When talking about lost bitcoins there is a possibility that it cannot be recovered because the habit of losing bitcoins is caused by carelessness and negligence of people in saving seeds or keys to bitcoin storage wallets. Why should people be happy when the bitcoin price drops? If in theory you mean a drop in bitcoin only at the time of purchase and wishing the price of bitcoin to go down it might still look normal, because generally people would try to take advantage of the drop to buy it, so the theory you mean is weak and unprovable.

The supply and demand process plays a much larger role and will remain in effect throughout its journey. When bitcoins are lost because access to wallets is no longer affordable, they can no longer be used forever by anyone. Therefore storing bitcoins in a secure wallet and securing the seeds and keys is also very important.

The effect of lost Bitcoin recovery is dependent on the ratio of the returning supply to circulation and the demand.  If there is a heavy demand on the Bitcoin market then these returning Bitcoin supply won't have much effect on the market.  But if Bitcoin is tanking and then a huge lost coins were recovered and immediately sold in the market, it is highly possible that the price of Bitcoin will be affected.  I think the crucial thing about this situation is the level of demand and the incoming supply to the Bitcoin market.

For any situation one is in, we will have the benefitted one and the affected one. A person who lost his or her will never be happy it happened, but as for the Bitcoin network, it will be benefitted one as you said.

Maybe we should be happy but the truth is that there are some realistic  that are so funny and seem bad but it's just the reality and the truth.
There have been several cades of people who already lost alot of their holdings and I guess what's mustbhave aided the price increasement of bitcoin  and in cryptocurrency  in general. There are the winners and the lossers because these are basically the two set of people we can find and in trading, when I first started, I've  always wondered where the money paid for a win came from but as time went by, I realized it was from the losses for others that the winning payments of others are made .

Some people invested in bitcoin when bitcoin price worth nothing, most of them those not believe bitcoin price will get to the price it is today, so they didn’t properly secure the bitcoin or should I say they didn’t properly secure their private key. If bitcoin lost is going to be recovered back, then it’s just small percentage that will be recovered back and it won’t really have any effect, also if bitcoin is recovered back and the person that lost the bitcoin those not sell it, if the person decide to keep on holding, then it’s not going to affect the bitcoin price, but if lots of bitcoin is recovered and everything is being sold, then it’s going to dump bitcoin price.

If some coins that are presumed lost turn out to be available, or if some people regain access to the coins they lost earlier, these coins will effectively become a part of the circulating supply. It's nothing bad per se, as it's just some more movement on the blockchain. But it can have a negative impact if people choose to sell their coins, as that can lead to more BTC for sale than the demand for purchase, pushing the price down. Realistically, though, I don't think such a thing is going to happen, as a lot of money is needed to make a difference, even temporarily.

Actually, it affects the market price if you buy or sell your asset it makes a price movement reason why you think it does not because you like in the small area only of the holders but if you are part of the whales and big company who is having a lot of money with their funds holding a different asset of cryptocurrency that's the time there's a possible huge pump or dump of the candles sticks. Sometimes these times are the reason why the bitcoin network are getting congested people keep selling their money and keep buying to grab the opportunity.

Even if the supposed lost Bitcoin is made available for sale on exchanges, there's likely not going to be any effect except all of it is placed on sale at the same time and that will be on a large scale. I know we're dealing with a hypothetical situation here but you and I know that these lost coins will never be recovered, never. I'm one of those who believe vehemently that there's no coin, especially Bitcoin, whose maximum supply will be same as circulating supply. There's bound to be loss due to death and the inability of the deceased to pass it on will always be there. Loss occasioned by carelessness will also be there. Remember how careless and nonchalant most early adopters were about Bitcoin because of lack of faith in the project and so not many of them carefully kept their PKeys or passwords.

No one is happy when the assets that are considered the most valuable are lost, I will also regret my negligence in saving the seed phrase which resulted in loss of assets. If you lose Bitcoin due to being unable to access it, the asset will automatically freeze until you can recover it, this will not have a significant impact on the bitcoin price even if the number in circulation decreases. Even though 21 million Bitcoins are still in circulation, the Bitcoin price will continue to increase as long as the demand is greater than the supply.

If it's too good to be true, it's probably not real. I was tricked by the many profits promises that I forgot to think of its actual possibility. It was a terrible time for me and my family but I am grateful the universe gave me another chance. I was introduced to Fred to file for recovery. I got in touch with Freddictine At consultant com) and reported my experience. Their processes are seamless and effective. Every victim of such scams can get a solutions

Today my laptop SSD broke, and all the passwords remained there. How can I get information from there?  :( :( :(

Bitcoin price falling or not need many factors , If those wallets are opened can create an instant sell wave but the market will recover soon after

A lost Bitcoin network cannot be fully recovered as it is considered a network donation. But if a hacker wants to do a full rescue, the market can change a bit. But it won't destroy the market completely but Bitcoin market will dump a bit and then it will rise again. We have seen many situations where many bitcoins are lost in wrong address but they cannot be recovered even after years. But I think it might be good for us if the lost bitcoins are recovered. If this is done then it will have some effect on the price of Bitcoin and its price may affect some of the demand.

We see lot of addresses becoming active after so many years holding lot of bitcoins but there is difference between dormant address and lost bitcoins as first one still have keys and access to wallets while others have completely lost access like without keys in that case they are completely lost.But yes we can't say what's the actual figure for the lost Bitcoins as can't say which will get recovered in future.

That depends on the situation, if you leave your seed phrase in elsewhere and someone pick it up, your would lose all of your coins forever if the person sweep your coins.

How you can be pretty sure it won't destroy the market completely? if there's a hacker can access the old wallet, it's mean the Bitcoin security isn't safe since there's a chance they can access your wallet too. Many people are use Bitcoin to store their wealth which mean they put all of their money in Bitcoin, they would be scared if Bitcoin isn't safe.

The answers is given by Og , and yes if that bitcoin you are calling is being found then that is not a lost bitcoin instead it is recovered so why need to make this an issue.
and if what you are telling is right then let it be there as a contribution for the network?
but sorry to tell as it is not , instead it will be lost forever and no one will benefits from those lose bitcoins or even other coins.
I myself have lost bitcoins from my forgotten Phrases and yes I admit it to be there in the air forever.

Your issue is off-topic to this thread unless you had something as valuable as the password to your crypto wallet on your SSD too. And by the way, "no backup, no mercy!" would be the emotionless answer of an IT guy. Next time you care about not creating a single point of failure and having no backup as I imply from your little details.

Did you loose your access to a wallet password?

---

Back on topic...
As far as I remember there have been threads about provably lost bitcoins, i.e. those whose redeem script can't be fullfilled ever or where miners didn't claim full block reward, be it intentionally or by error. Those I consider kind of vandalism or some strange sort of statement.

Then we have lost private keys, provably lost private keys specifically. Those coins are lost by security of Bitcoin's cryptography. Well, as shit happens all the time, their amount will likely slowly rise. I know of at least one thread some years ago which tried to sum up the amount lost by provably lost private keys. Of course this works only for users who have reported known losses of their own here in this forum.

Then there are burn addresses for which very likely no public and private key exists (and never will unless Bitcoin's security gets broken). I don't like locking coins into those either, probably the worst examples as of today's balances are:

Burn address		No. of transactions		Locked amount in BTC
1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr		2922		2,130.98332315
1ChancecoinXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXZELUFD		268		480.19569938
1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE		490		13.31609556
1NewbiecoinXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXDN67UA8		8		1.31817000

Then there is about 5% of total supply, more than 1 Mio. BTC that Satoshi Nakamoto mined whose fate is unknown. Satoshi only ever moved very very few of his coins and I don't expect them to move ever again.

Then there are people who have sent coins to coinbase public keys or addresses which are attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, the majority to the Genesis block's coinbase. Technically those aren't lost, but likely they are as I don't believe they will be moved ever by Satoshi Nakamoto (if he still lives) or whoever inherits the private keys if those still exist.
The amount sent by people is in the ballpark of 29.41BTC... (considering blocks #0, #9 and the Patoshi blocks (http://satoshiblocks.info/))


P.S.
What's the purpose of opening a thread and remaining silent even after more than 50 replies by others? This feels strange to me when an OP acts like that.

This is why one should always keep backups at about 3 or more different places where they know they are safe so that if something goes wrong with the initial source where your information is saved, you can use the alternative source to recover your funds. This is of utmost recklessness if you have a lot of funds and your keys were only saved in your SSD that got damaged and it always had the possibility of breaking or getting damaged somehow.

People don't take good care of their assets and the wallets where they are keeping their funds and then start complaining that Bitcoin is not safe because their funds are lost or stolen, etc. Your funds will be safe but only if you know how to keep them safe and take good care of everything involving your wallet and funds.

Depends on the "amount" of lost bitcoin being recovered. If it is few bitcoins, then no, it won't affect the market. If a wallet was recovered with significant amount of bitcoin recovered (like a lot lot lot), then yes, it might affect the market, but just a little. There will be people that will panic and start selling without understanding anything, and others will follow seeing the price crash. They don't even care if the recovered bitcoin is going to be sold or not. And when the price crashes, others will see as an opportunity, grab it as a discount and the price will start going up. So yeah, a little hiccup on the market and then everything goes back to normal like nothing happened.

Losing Bitcoin's seed phrases and keys is like losing a gold vault's keys. No one wants to lose their hard-earned riches. This misfortune deserves sympathy.

Markets are mysterious. You wondered why some could enjoy declining Bitcoin prices. This contradictory attitude has a rationale. As an avid market observer, I see price decreases as opportunities for new crypto entrants. They can buy Bitcoin at a discount and hope it rises again, as it usually does.

The hypothesis is weak, but its reinforced by "buy low, sell high." Supply and demand are the fundamental drivers, but market mood is influenced by such opportunities. We agree on protecting those keys and seeds.

Before there are talks about extending the Bitcoins supply I think they will use a technology called Taproot if I am not mistaken. I wonder if that development are still on going but we will see soon if they are successful with that or not.

There is no such thing as reserved Bitcoin that will replace the lost Bitcoin of others. Once a private key is lost, there might be a recovery method that we can use to find them, if not then we can declare that the Bitcoins are lost completely. We shouldn't wish that many people will lose their Bitcoins even though it can make the price rise. That's evil. Besides it is still possible for Bitcoins value to grow the natural way.

If it is recovered and sold on the market I think it will be affected for a few days and bitcoin will be stable again. Over time, bitcoin is still rare

Bitcoin that is lost is already lost forever, but there are instances where it is not lost as they recovered their seed phrase and were able to unlock their wallet, which means it is not lost. If you ask if the price will drop, it will definitely drop if someone sells tons of Bitcoin, but the chances right now are very low and rare that those lost bitcoins were recovered.

Very few of these are actually recovered. The majority are lost forever and we should not give much importance to that. While they are not recovered we have to consider them as sold at zero price and hence they make the total pool of available bitcoin lower and hence raise the price. But I agree that Bitcoin itself is rare and not much liquid even today and hence it's price is high. We should focus on increasing the amount of Bitcoin that we own and leave out the rest.

Also keeping the coins safe is an important thing as well. Don't lose your one coins thats the main thing.

Bitcoins that disappear from the market may never return to the market. The bitcoins that were said to be lost I think were deliberately taken out of the market to increase the value of bitcoins. If the amount of Bitcoin that disappeared from the market comes back into the market, the price of Bitcoin will go down a lot and people will lose faith in this coin. The main reason that the price of Bitcoin is at a normal level is that there is a certain amount of Bitcoin in the market that some people are buying or that some people are selling, that is, Bitcoin is not added to the market beyond the specified limit, but whenever it is added to the market beyond the specified limit, its demand will decrease a lot in the market.

What is lost is lost forever and it is almost impossible to find what you lost like private keys, passwords or seed phrase. Chance to recover a lost wallet, password, seed phrase is not big so very few assumed lost bitcoin will be recover.

Some old bitcoins woke up are not actually lost bitcoins. They are only dormant bitcoins and the owners still have access to those coins and they just did not move their coins in previous years.

For lost bitcoins I don't mind when they were lost and around what prices of Bitcoin on the market. It belongs to history and only the owners know real stories of their losses so with us, it does not make sense to guess their stories.

Secure your wallets (https://bitcoin.org/en/secure-your-wallet)
Cryptocurrency security checklist (https://chainsec.io/checklist/)

You should know this, that bitcoin transactions are one way forward actions that cannot be reversed, it's either the transaction gets confirmed and you lost your bitcoin through sending it to wrong address, if you sent to a wrong address, the coins are gone forever, if your transactions is unconfirmed, give it time to get confirmed because mempool might be busy atimes, now this is where people get it wrong, if you loose access to your private keys that allows you to have control over your bitcoin for yours doesn't mean your coins are lost, they will always be on that wallet till you have access to those keys or they remain there, that is not treated as lost coins.

Lost bitcoins are not a voluntary donations to the network. They are involuntary. Irresponsible storage or the neglected necessity to take care of how you store your Bitcoins is one of the reasons that they will never be able to be recovered. I doubt many of those who lost their coins voluntarily destroyed their access to them.

There will never be a case where all lost Bitcoins suddenly become available to their owners, so there is no need to theorize how much the price would drop if that were to happen. Though yes, the price would drop as instantly a lot of Bitcoin would enter supply rapidly.

Should we be happy? Not really. It's better that Bitcoins are circulating and continued to circulate since that period of time. It creates more ecosystem activity, it creates more use-case and it makes the network more active. Is it economically beneficial right now that these coins are unlikely to ever be circulated again? Sure.

We have to distinguish between lost bitcoins or suddenly active wallets because the owner holds bitcoins for too long, even though there are large amounts of bitcoin transactions to other addresses but that does not mean they can affect market prices, every day there are always large numbers of bitcoin transactions to other addresses that are detected by the bot system being developed.

Even though deposit transactions from addresses have recently been active but not large amounts, it is possible that wallet owners only use 10-20% to be sold in stages due to the financial need to develop their company, but their assets are focused on holding long term because of the potential for bitcoin prices to increase higher in the future.

There's no such thing about donation because those coins are totally lost in void and there's no way on getting those coins back unless if those privatekeys would be able to retreive or would be seen again then for sure
those coins would really be get on, considering on how long it had been idle then its impossible for its owners not to sell out on the time that they would really be getting a hold of it.  :D
Lots had been even trying to bruteforce a particular wallet but still failed up and this do proves out on how secure Bitcoin is. This is why if you do own Bitcoin then it would really be just that a common sense
on storing up those keys on a secure place but never ever tend to forget those keys because once those things are lost then say goodbye into your wallet and coins inside it.

Lots of stuff that affects the price of bitcoin, the ones at circulation are just a factor of it. If it were to be discovered and returned into circulation, depending on if it were to be sold outrightly, or if it were to be sold to be traded yields two different outcomes. The former causing the price to go down cause it depreciates the value of bitcoin by dumping some of it especially if it's a substantial amount, but the latter wouldn't do much cause at the end of the day, nothing of value is lost.

I would argue that the recovery of lost bitcoins would even be great for bitcoin cause at the end of the day, that's more bitcoin that would be in circulation with more people being able to buy and use it, so whether they sell it or not, the price change will be temporary, but the benefits will stay with us until bitcoin's gone.

How would it be great for BTC when it is impossible to be certain that BTC in a dormant address is lost, this idea would defeat and possibly destroy the network because it will lead to stealing people's coins because they decided not to sell or move it. If BTC are lost, then let them remain lost, but there should be no way to recover BTC's that have not moved for a very long time.

Happy that someone lost his or her life savings? No I am not, because I am also a Bitcoin holder, I won't like it if I manage to lost my Bitcoin, also there is no way we can know the numbers of lost Bitcoins, and not all sleeping wallet addresses are lost.

Even if no single Bitcoin are lost till date are you saying that the value ain't never going to be the same? Those who lost their Bitcoin for real might have sold them in the past years already, any old holders that have Bitcoin right now understood the game, and they are prepared to always be here for a longer period.

I'd tell you Mr. Craig Wright tried to recover lost coins on his Bitcoin SV blockchain, only to face opposition from the community (as far as I'm aware). Don't expect BTC developers to do the same, especially when it's in their best interests to keep Bitcoin a deflationary cryptocurrency. As Satoshi stated before, “Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.” If lost coins are recovered, doesn't that make BTC similar to banks? I'm fine with Bitcoin just the way it is.

People should assume responsibility by protecting their Bitcoins from being lost in the long run. If they're lost, they're gone for good. Think of it as cash (paper money). Only that it's not controlled by a government or central bank, and it's deflationary by design. Who knows how much BTC will be worth in the future as coins are removed from the circulating supply? Just my thoughts ;D

there are various reasons why they are considered lost. owners forgot the keys, or simply forgot they had bitcoins. or some owners were already dead and didn't give it to their loved ones and so on. whatever the reason is, it won't affect anymore in the current market. i don't think recovering the lost btc will have an impact in the current market. we already reach this price level for years, so it is like establishing the foundation of this market considering all the other factors including these lost BTCs

I disagree that there is no such thing as a donation. I am sure in the years of 2008-2012 people who held Bitcoin may have had the idea that by destroying supply in some way, would positively contribute to the economics of Bitcoin due to reducing the supply. These actions would be considered donations to the network. It's very unlikely that this still happens with similar amounts. Maybe similar things happen today, though it just seems less likely due to value difference at that point until now.

Those who irresponsibly held their coins and then lost access to them did not voluntarily donate to the network like the above, rather their own actions and unfortunate circumstances led to an involuntary donation to the network, as their loss becomes beneficial to the economics of Bitcoin (again, less supply).

I agree that bruteforcing is unlikely to ever be successful and if it ever is near, a patch will be implemented prior to it being deployed against Bitcoin....I hope.


We can always remind ourselves and others about the precautions and steps to make sure that holdings are secure to prevent loss, though I'm sure that there will always be mistakes and irresponsibility (both are human nature after all) and therefore Bitcoin will always receive involuntary donations.

Bitcoin has a specific number created which everyone has already know total supply as a Bitcoin users, in other words Bitcoin is Lost is gone for ever, because the private key or password doesn't share to anyone, which is a individual risk holding in a private wallet and that is why is good to go for knowledge before enroll Bitcoin business.

You just posted a Wikipedia page just with your words. Yeah, we all know that. It's kinda sad that it can't be recovered at all. Yeah, Bitcoin requires preparation and security, but it's not just you losing Bitcoin, it's lost forever for everyone.

I agree with that, I do not think that they donated to make sure that the supply drops and the value would go up. I think they just involuntarily did that by making a mistake. I have done that before, there is some money out there somewhere in the world that I used to own. I am fine with it and at peace because it was about 10 dollars back then, and probably somewhere close to 3k today, and will probably be more later on.

However, I had the chance to get more of it when I can and decided not to, so it is going to be a different situation. In the end we are talking about a situation where it is going to be difficult and we need to learn to live with it and can't really make a big difference in the end when the time comes.

In the early days, I'm sure many played with the theory of destroying coins in attempt to effect price. Or, believed they were contributing to the ecosystem by destroying coins. Of course it would be a very small percentage of people vs. involuntary/mistakingly...though still some people may have nonetheless.


Me too. It sucks, but that's just how it goes! You have to also remember that you could have spent or sold those coins at any point from then until today, and when you think of it that way you find more peace in knowing that either way you may not have ran the whole hodl marathon to date.


Agreed....and deciding not to now at a point where the future is so obvious, is a much different regret to earlier days. Let's hope ourselves and others do better for our future.

The cause of the loss of bitcoins is caused by several things, cases of hacking and loss of storage wallet access. If the trait is lost, but can eventually recover it means it will never disappear. The price of bitcoin is not determined by a single event and there are many things that might influence it. For example, such as demand and supply as a general basis whenever something is traded and there is always a bargaining value that applies in the market.

No one likes it if the bitcoin they have is lost, so therefore everyone must be able to secure the bitcoin they have by storing it in a safe place. There are wallets that can make bitcoins safe to store and all you need to do is learn how to use them.

We can't actually count them but we can see how many are in circulation while the actual one's lost are those which cannot be recovered at all that will decrease the 21M supply with that number permanently.So what system you are talking about here? If there is possibility to recover any coins we can't consider them lost so how come we decide these numbers?

Technically, the bitcoins aren’t lost as its readily visible on the address or addresses instead, what’s lost is the seed phrase or private keys to the wallets hodling them and in some cases, on some exchange that went out of existence. In most cases, these exchanges just make away with your money and you consider it lost.

Should the coins be recovered by any means, that still doesn’t mean it’s all going to be offered for sales in the market. Haven’t understood what values it’s got and what future it could have in time, it wouldn’t be strange to have anyone completely liquidate their portfolio. I think the smart move would be, selling just enough to be stable or rich as you could be while, you hodl the major for a time you don’t know yet.

In the event that such persons or organizations gets to sell, surely the market will sock it all up and be back before you know it.

Lost bitcoins cannot be recovered. Everything else is just a fairy tale, unfortunately

People who are involved with Bitcoin or who hold Bitcoin for a long period of time first settle their wallets more and then hold Bitcoins for a long time so it is very difficult to lose Bitcoins with this much security. But the bitcoins that are lost from the market may be from one person to another, but the amount of bitcoins that were supplied is still in the market, so even if the lost bitcoins are recovered, there is no possibility that the value of bitcoins will decrease. But if some more amount of Bitcoin is added to the market beyond the total supply then the price of Bitcoin may fall down from the current state. If there is some amount of bitcoins in the reserve, then those bitcoins must be released in the market according to a certain medium. If those bitcoins can be released in the market according to a certain medium, then the price of bitcoins will remain normal.

There are also "dormant" Bitcoins which are kept in a cold storage wallet for later use. Some people believe these coins are lost because of the inactivity on the Blockchain. There's really no way to tell if Bitcoins are lost or dormant. But you can rest assured that BTC won't be affected just because some people lost their coins. There are plenty of satoshis for everyone to get into the game. The more coins lost, the higher the price of a Bitcoin will be.

I'd focus on buying and accumulating BTC to prepare myself for the future. Who knows if we're closer to $1m per coin than we've ever thought? Just my opinion :)

There can't be any more Bitcoins created than there are in circulation. The blockchain technology which underpins Bitcoin doesnt allow for the issuance of more coins than are already in circulation. Inflationary threats associated with conventional fiat currencies are reduced by this idea of finite supply.

When considering reserves, however, keep in mind that Bitcoin is not like conventional financial institutions. Reserves do not exist; all that exists is unmined Bitcoin. These will be added to the market via mining at a steadily increasing rate until the final Bitcoin is mined in about 2140. In the meanwhile, lets HODL

Of course, cold storage is something I forgot to mention. Nice one!

I do wonder though, if you stored coins in 2008-2013, would you have just kept the private key and left it this entire time, or would you have moved the coins to better storage following? If someone is still holding their coins from that era and has not touched them, while keeping them safe and having peace of mind with the way they store it, they definitely deserve some credit and commendation.


For us that unfortunately don't have cold storage from that era, exactly. The only thing we can do is focus on accumulating! Good luck everyone :)

To save up to this point seems like it would be a miracle.
But when they forget and find the private key now stored in a safe place, they are quite lucky.

Few people will be able to hold on to it for now, but if they are experts and store or move their bitcoins in a Cold Wallet or hardware wallet, they are ready from the start and believe in Bitcoin.

Like the story of Davinci Jeremie, a software developer from Chile who is a true Bitcoin Holder.
Bought Bitcoin for under $1 and held it until now then sold it gradually and became a Bitcoin investor with a million-dollar fortune.

It takes a strong determination and belief that Bitcoin will reach its highest price and become valuable in the future.
No one will lose Bitcoin.

Not just a miracle, but also extremely good discipline. Of course if you lost it and found it, definitely a miracle. Just holding it however, just diamond hands!

You don't need to be an expert to utilize cold storage. In fact, everyone should be using at least cold storage for coins that are not planning to be moved for 1-3 months+.

Given today's economic circumstance - you are right in saying that it is hard for the average person to hold on for the long haul.


I wish I was a part of Bitcoin at those prices, and had a few hundred dollars of cash to spare. I would like to think that I would at least have been able to hold onto a few or put some in cold storage for the long run. Yet, here we are. A strong amount of determination, belief and lack of interference from financial circumstances I believe were absolutely necessary in hindsight.

If the amount of Bitcoin lost is recovered in full, it will not significantly affect the value of Bitcoin. And you should never do that thinking because lost bitcoins can never be recovered. and we can say that the amount of lost bitcoins should be considered as a donation to the bitcoin network. and as per your question, even if the lost bitcoins are fully recovered, there will be no damage or change to the bitcoin network, but the price of bitcoin may fall slightly.

And that will never happen unless developers change the code and the community approves it. We all know how Bitcoin SV's attempts to do this turned into a huge failure. It's simply not worth doing this. By increasing the circulating supply, you're essentially removing value from the market. You can see why Satoshi always said that lost Bitcoins are a donation to the community.

I'm fine with BTC just the way it is as long as it remains decentralized and censorship-resistant. That said, it's up to you to take responsibility by preventing the loss or theft of your BTC. Who knows if the number of lost coins is reduced over time? Just my opinion :)

The theory you propose has some foundation, but as others have said in the thread, it cannot be based solely on the supply in circulation... because the price of BTC goes beyond that simplicity, other much more important factors come into play here, Which would further highlight the scarcity, since it is known that in total only 21 million bitcoins can be mined and as demand increases and supply remains limited, the price tends to rise. If the lost bitcoins were to be recovered, the total amount of bitcoins in circulation would increase, which could lessen the upward pressure caused by the shortage and affect the price. One thing I learned from the Wyckoff Method book is market perception and I say this because it's a key driver of the Bitcoin price… the market is very sensitive to perceptions and news. If a large number of lost bitcoins are reported to have been recovered, this could have a psychological impact on investors and traders, potentially influencing the direction of Bitcoin's price.

I highlight the fact that current factors such as institutional adoption, government regulation, public acceptance and the underlying technology have been giving a lot of talk about the value of Bitcoin… So thinking about the low probability of recovering those lost Bitcoin will only remain in situations that most likely will never happen.

If the coins are recovered then you can assume that they are back in circulation and the owner might try to sell them, which is their personal choice. If the coins are never recovered which is the maximum number of cases, those coins can be considered to be "inaccessible" and therefore lost forever and not coming back to the market to change its prices.

But the chances of such recoveries are tiny. So better to consider lost bitcoin as lost forever.

It is very simple. The bitcoins that are lost can be considered as burnt and it directly reduces the active supply of bitcoins in the network.
So bitcoin becomes more scarce with reducing supply which gives it more value. If the bitcoins are recovered the active supply increases making the value slightly decrease.
It's all about the demand and supply.

The lost bitcoins I think will never be recovered so if they were then about half of the bitcoins would have been recovered by now.  And in the current Bitcoin environment I think the price won't go down even if the lost Bitcoins are recovered. Because as more bitcoins come into the market, the number of buyers will increase. @op Lost Key How to unlock your wallet if lost? I don't think it can ever be salvaged. Currently, the number of people in the market is very high, so if it was possible to recover BTC, many people would have recovered it and brought it to the market.

No one has ever held Bitcoin in an environment where Bitcoin would be lost. I personally store bitcoins in wallets I will never lose. So those who hold quality bitcoins may have been hoarding bitcoins for a long time. And no one will ever throw the face keys of hardware wallets down the drain.

The price of Bitcoin may depend on the demand for Bitcoin in the market rather than the supply of Bitcoin in the market. Suppose at the moment the total supply of Bitcoin is reduced a lot but people do not buy and sell Bitcoin, then even if the total supply decreases, the price of Bitcoin will decrease because people do not like Bitcoin. Similarly, if lost bitcoins can be recovered and those bitcoins are released into the market, the value of bitcoins will not decrease even if people believe in bitcoins and people buy more bitcoins. According to certain calculations the number of Bitcoin users is increasing every year, that is, the amount of Bitcoin generated every year is equal to the amount of new members connecting to Bitcoin to buy Bitcoin, so I think we should not worry about the price of Bitcoin.

Such a shame too, but yeah it is overall good for all holders. That type of loss would surely be a tough pill to swallow, eh? All the way from Mt Gox to FTX and everything in between.

The lost of customers' coins in Mt. Gox, FTX or any centralized exchanges aren't entirely lost. The coins can still be accessed and spend, the different is just the person who hold the coins. It's like you get hacked, the coins belong to hacker.

Bitcoin is lost from the circulation supply when no one own the private key or not able to access it anymore.

Some people use to store Bitcoin on a cold storage wallet and forget about it for a long time. You'd think the coins are "lost" because they are no longer circulating across the network. There's really no way to tell whenever Bitcoins are lost or dormant. Assuming they're all lost, market prices should be able to rise exponentially over the coming years. Think of it as added deflation.

What's important is that people do the right thing by securing their coins against hacks and/or theft. It's very unlikely to lose funds on a properly-secured Bitcoin wallet. Lost coins or not, Bitcoin will be here to stay for a very long time. Just my thoughts ;D

Most of the lost accounts will never be recovered, since they are often lost with no trace at all (for instance, a guy created an acc back in 2009, then collected some btc on it, then forgot about the acc and lost all the keys for it). But there are many sleeping accounts, which can resemble lost acs until the owner decides to be active. Such accounts can become a threat for crypto financial system, if adoption goes to far, since their owners can become crypto tycoons dictating the financial game rules, the same thing has happened with the dollar system.

This is one of the disadvantage of Bitcoin or the general cryptocurrency. It can not be easily transferred to generations and once the seed phrase is lost, everything about our cryptocurrency assets is lost for ever and it can not be reclaimed again. Bitcoin is good to invest in but we need understand the disadvantage before putting our money into it or else we are going to make loses that is inevitable. The lost Bitcoin are nit still accessible till now and the owners have nothing to do about it since they don't have access to the seed phrase.

A donation to the network, it is a beautiful statement, but it will not always the truth. So a bitcoiner should make a hard decision to "destroy" his bitcoins, because he knows they are limited. Just think about it and you come in a short time to the thought "no I do not". so a donation is very nice to say, but I believe it in very few cases. There is for example this address here, recently weéder bitcoin arrived with the designation "Mt Gox Hacker": https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF

If Bitcoin wallet addresses are lost, the Bitcoins associated with those addresses essentially become inaccessible. This is because Bitcoin transactions and ownership are tied to the private keys that correspond to the wallet addresses. Without the private key, it's impossible to access or spend the Bitcoins associated with a particular wallet address. So, if someone loses their private key or the information needed to access their wallet, those Bitcoins are effectively lost.

However, it's important to note that lost Bitcoins do not directly affect the overall supply of Bitcoin in the market. The total supply of Bitcoin is capped at 21 million coins, and this cap will not change due to lost Bitcoins. What can happen, though, is that the reduced effective supply due to lost coins might create a perception of scarcity and potentially influence market sentiment. If a significant number of Bitcoins are lost and cannot be accessed, we can argue that the scarcity could increase the value of the remaining accessible Bitcoins over the long term, as they become relatively scarcer compared to the fixed supply.

Their is some certain things i do consider in any investment, what comes to my mind when investment of Bitcoin come in, is that you have to understand that bitcoin investment have to do with risk and when you have not make up your mind to say bitcoin investment is all about  risk that means you have not started in bitcoin investment, the lost they are telling for bitcoin investment is all about when you are losing in bitcoin and if you invest when you are not invest in bitcoin, so this one of things I know that happens in bitcoin investment also,lose is what every investment person do experience

For the most part, no. The thing about bitcoin is that, no price point is for certain until you act upon it. With that in mind this means that should you find your lost bitcoins or gain access to them somehow after years of not being able to do so, the only time that you could affect bitcoin's price if the sale was sudden, like a couple of hours or days in between, and the amount of bitcoin you sold's high enough that it causes panic within the industry. Usually not even a few thousand bitcoins being transferred from addresses to addresses cause bitcoin's price to drop, so I'm not so sure how much bitcoins you would really need to sell in order to insinuate a price dump.