Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoins are continually being lost. People lose their wallet logins. People die without anybody else holding wallet logins. Bitcoins are burned for any number of reasons. All these things and more are reasons why bitcoins are lost, which all contribute to the value of the bitcoins that remain.


Up To 37% Of Circulating Bitcoin May Be Lost Forever In Silent Supply Shock (https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/384035-2025-09-08-up-to-37-of-circulating-bitcoin-may-be-lost-forever.htm)

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https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/bitcoins-hidden-scarcity-lost-coins-and-silent-supply-shock
Estimates from on-chain analyses suggest that between 2.3 million and an incredible 7.8 million BTC (roughly between 11—37% of total supply), may have vanished forever, trapped in lost wallets, forgotten keys, or in addresses abandoned due to unexpected deaths. These 'zombie' or 'ghost' coins then effectively reduce Bitcoin's effective circulating supply from the current 19.9 million to as low as a range of 12.1—17.6 million BTC.

A Donation to Everyone

As well as intensifying Bitcoin's existing inherent scarcity, coins that permanently vanish boost the true value of all remaining Bitcoins. As Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator/creators, stated in a foresightful observation in April 2010 in a post on the BitcoinTalk forum: "Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone."

The lost coin range estimate (2.3—7.8 million) also comfortably exceeds the combined total of Bitcoin ETF and corporate treasury holdings which together total approximately 2.2 million BTC, a point rarely highlighted by a mainstream financial media fixated on the latest Blackrock Bitcoin ETF inflows and [Micro]Strategy's latest BTC purchases.

No Keys, No Coins

Bitcoin's rarity is thus magnified by these permanent losses, as the lost coin supply shock increases the value of every remaining coin, in contrast to traditional centralised assets such as stocks or bonds, In Bitcoin, there is no safety net. Once access is gone, the coins are effectively removed from circulation.

With a self-custodial architecture of 'be your own bank' but on an immutable blockchain, any lost and inaccessible coins on the Bitcoin network remain visible but untouchable. There is no bank and no bailout - only the owner and their private keys.

The familiar warning about exchange-held BTC of "not your keys, not your coins" now becomes the even more dramatic "no keys, no coins" in the off-exchange world.

Bitcoin relies on private keys (unique 256-bit cryptographic strings) to control and transfer ownership between addresses. Forgotten passwords, lost seed phrases, overwritten files, corrupted drives, or discarded hardware all result in irreversible inaccessibility.
... (https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/bitcoins-hidden-scarcity-lost-coins-and-silent-supply-shock)

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When we talk about lost Bitcoin as a donation to everyone, we need to be specific to some extent, like being worthy to note that only those holding Bitcoin right now will be the benefactor of that Bitcoin value increase in the future aided by lost inactive wallets.

We need to emphasize on that fact so that people will start taking their Bitcoin accumulation seriously to avoid had I known regret in the future when the price increase up to 5x of Bitcoin current price.

IIRC there was a discussion to brought the lost coins in circulation, although it's just an idea and the developers haven't realize it.

Supply could affect Bitcoin price, but it's all about the demand, if most people not want to buy Bitcoin, it will greatly affect Bitcoin price. But, I see most people are trying to buy Bitcoin and hold it for long term, so we can say a lot of people want Bitcoin.

Such incidents have happened many times before when the value of Bitcoin was very low then no one cared much about Bitcoin wallet. And right then many people lost their Bitcoin wallet key. And now they regret about those things. Private key is such a thing that if lost it is never possible to unlock Bitcoin wallet even if there are billions of dollars in it is it possible to get it back or not and they will remain there for the rest of their life. That is why it is always said that not your key not your Bitcoin

I think this is a known reason why Bitcoin is considered undervalued.
The supposed limited supply is even lower and it's going to get lower because it's inevitable that more coins will get lost.
It should just die as an idea. It's even worse than the idea of making old UTXOs undependable.

There is zero chance of such a proposal ever passing, in any version of it. Bitcoin is divisible by 100M satoshis. Even if we had only 1M Bitcoin left, it would be more than enough. If its value would increase too much you could add another unit smaller than satoshi. This would make it usable even if there was only 1 Bitcoin left in the circulating supply. Diluting the market by reintroducing lost coins is a very bad idea. As an outsider you can never prove with certainty that coins are actually lost.

Nobody except a few radicals and confused individuals support such ideas. I would not worry about it.

Bitcoin is undeniably being wanted by many people today, so bitcoin value will continue to increase overtime. The loss of Bitcoin that are yet to be realized are sometimes just something to ponder about, but if there is a way to realized them back for the owners, it may just reduce the value more if they end up selling them in the market. If the larger part of those that have lost those bitcoins gets to realize them back, and decides to hold them, there will be no changes felt in the market.

I think this angle is underrated in mainstream discussions. Like we mostly focused on ETFs and new buyers but the fact that so much Bitcoin is permanently out of circulation changes the entire supply-demand balance. The effective supply could be closer to 15M or so which I think makes Bitcoin even scarcer than gold when you think about it. The beauty and risk(depending on the angle you want to look at it) is that Bitcoin has no backup or bailout mechanism. Like there's no recovery and no second chances just a market that adjusts naturally to whatever supply remains.

How long will the lost or burned bitcoins take to affect the value of Btc? Bitcoin is way down from its ATH.

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Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Every time someone loses access to their wallet, it’s basically like those coins are gone forever. That shrinking supply is one of the things that keeps Bitcoin different from other assets. It’s kind of wild to think a chunk of the total supply is just sitting there, untouchable, making the rest of the coins more valuable

Isn’t it already affecting the bitcoin price already because the demand is high with the fear that the supply will dry off. Realistically though I think lost coins adding value to the other ones will be after the entire bitcoin has been mined and with no more bitcoin been mined and the ever growing adoption increases which translates to high demand, this demands according to economics rule will make the remaining bitcoin valuable by increasing price valuation. So until the bitcoin is totally mined we wouldn’t see the impact of this lost coins


For me I think most of these examples are not entirely lost coins. Personally what I can say is unless a coin is burnt it is not totally lost forever since there is still a possibility of anyone getting access to the wallet again, for example maybe a family person who holds bitcoin and died without revealing the place where the private keys or seed phrase are stored, in this kind of situation here there is no guarantee that it is lost coin because the access to that wallet is attainable and any time

Well, maybe it won't affect it. Critically thinking of it now, I don't believe lost quantity adds to giving Bitcoin any value in price. What actually adds price value to Bitcoin is its adoption by usage. We've observed how institutions are beginning to adopt Bitcoin and they've incredibly been mopping supply with their demand. If we continue this way, more spikes will continue to happen to price. But if there's no demand as a result of lost of interest by institutions and individuals, Bitcoin won't appreciate in value despite lost quantity out of circulation. Lost circulation doesn't mean demand. It's demand that can bring about value appreciation.

Yes!

satoshi has already said this and we give them credit for contributing and donating to the value of Bitcoin. We don't wish that there will be more in the future because we all want to enjoy the growing value of it.

But, unforeseen events do really come and so if you're the only one who knows about bitcoin and wallets, you should start teaching anyone from your immediate family.

Gift them a $5-$10 worth of satoshi for them to understand it and start knowing more about this great wealth of transfer.

It is my first time to know that about 7.8 million bitcoins possibly lost forever.

Previous reports and estimations are only about less than 4 million bitcoins lost.
3.7 million Bitcoin are probably gone forever. (https://decrypt.co/37171/lost-bitcoin-3-7-million-bitcoin-are-probably-gone-forever)

You can estimate different figures for possible lost bitcoins by using different definitions on inactive years for identifying possible lost bitcoins. You can use this UTXO chart and your definitions for getting your own numbers.
https://www.bitcoinmagazinepro.com/charts/hodl-waves/

Therefore, is Bitcoin a good global currency?

Estimates aren't accurate, but if it's 11 to 37% within just 16 years, how much more for the next 20, 30, 50, 70 years?

Or is this something that should be taken into consideration in designing an ideal currency? If the global population is continuously rising, hence the demand as well, yet the currency is continuously dwindling, does it not pose a serious problem in the decades or centuries to come?

Should the supply of an ideal global currency be dynamic, flexible, or elastic rather than fixed?

Estimates are estimates and estimated lost bitcoins are partially not lost bitcoins. We have already witnessed many old bitcoins woke up after around 10 inactive years.

Furthermore, with time and Bitcoin growth in adoption, value and price, I believe that the Bitcoin lost rate will become smaller with time. It's naturally as people will be more careful with their practice and minimize risk of losing bitcoins. Another thing is with higher price of bitcoin, people will be able to buy less bitcoin, fraction of bitcoin, so the lost bitcoins in the future will be considerably smaller than in the past.

I don't know how long, but keep it in mind that bitcoin will still increase higher when there is time for the price to increase and it will affect investors positively, i believe this is not your first time of experiencing decrease from bitcoin or this is your first time of invested huge amount of funds on bitcoin and see the price decreasing? those are some of the things that make some newbies or old investors to be panicking about a little decrease that will not stop bullish not to appear in the market, if you don't know that bitcoin is decreasing gradually to enter bearish season soon, you better know it now that bearish season is very close, which it will happen any moment from next month or before the end of this year 2025, and if you are the type of investor that is accumulating bitcoin, I don't think it will affect you negatively.

Everyone, this is the post of satoshi from 2010, where satoshi said from the statement, where, yeah, it makes sense, it will be a donation to everyone somehow. Means the actual supply of Bitcoin of 21million will probably decrease.
This kind of nature in Bitcoin makes sense as that is how the power of no more Bitcoin will be generated, more than 21 million. And also the ability of everyone can create a Bitcoin wallet on their own without other entities, send and receive Bitcoin.

I don't rely so much on the lost Bitcoin theory because most of the coins that are said to be lost may be coins sitting in wallets in which the owners decide not to move for once, not because they have lost access to the wallet like the wallet of Satoshi. This does not mean I disagree with you that Bitcoin will not continue to go up because it will and my conviction comes from the fact that it has a fixed supply and a growing popularity and demand. This alone is enough reason to know that Bitcoin have no choice than to go up.

Zerohedge I find is not always accurate. Go and google them and you will find that they are not accurate. Some even say they have alot of conspiritial ideas even. Some of their articles and analysis is great but I find that every day there is going to be some massive crash which hasn't happened yet.

Its possible that 10% are lost but I doubt its 30%. When bitcoin started to gain value, people took holding it more seriously. Last year we had many wallets from 2010 which moved from the first time. We assumed those were lost but they clearly werent. So besides Satoshis coins, its hard to tell which will never get spent.

Bitcoin is the hardest money and the most superior form of money humanity has ever used. Compared to the fiat system  which is a complete pyramid scheme that relies on constant money printing and injecting fiat currencies into circulation Bitcoin stands apart.

Fiat printing causes inflation and the rising cost of everything, while Bitcoin has a hard monetary policy, a clear issuance schedule, and inflation that gets cut in half every four years until it eventually reaches zero.

The loss of Bitcoin only adds to its scarcity.
But the main reason why Bitcoin will continue to rise forever is the endless inflation of the fiat system Bitcoin has no top, because fiat has no bottom.

More fiat being printed => more value is going to be stored properly in BTC.

It's a cycle that never stops, I agree with you.

These have been happening for long, so it has become a bitter lesson to many of us, thereby making us wiser than them of old. Or are you not wiser than them already knowing fully well the danger of losing your Bitcoin in case something unplanned for happened? If you don't, I guess you should do. I believe that this understanding and taking precautions will not really make the loss of access to Bitcoin be the major reason why it will appreciate in price, but a true adoption and liquidity injection.

There is quite a possibility that, over time, AI programs will be created that can locate such lost wallets and, using powerful generative capabilities, retrieve the bitcoins from them. But then the question arises, if such a capability becomes available to people, wouldn’t it also be used for theft? I think that the knowledge of the existence of such wallets has already attracted many developers to the idea of creating such a capability.

The problem is how can we bring an end to all these?
If people are losing Bitcoin due so many reasons, it will reduce the Bitcoin in circulation and increased the price since the demand from new people will be very high, but is it normal to keep losing Bitcoin like this?

I think we need to start trusting our loved once with our private keys and seed phrases because of you only have access to them and you are no more, then your Bitcoin will be there, none of your family member can access your Bitcoin if they don’t have your seed phrase.

Likewise we also need to put more efforts in given awareness to people on how to manage their Bitcoin and how to do transactions because expect people in this forum, so many people don’t have good knowledge on how to send Bitcoin properly and people are losing Bitcoin in that manner.

I agree with this argument. Missing BTC does indeed create some kind of silent supply shock that makes Bitcoin even more scarce. As opposed to bailable, re Printable centralized assets, Bitcoin is final: no coins, no keys. Technically, the blockchain still retains records for those "dead" coins, but in reality they're gone forever.

This is exactly why Bitcoin is resilient as hard money—its supply is capped, and over time it can be capped even further. So what is really a weakness is actually an increase in the value of the remaining coins in existence.

One example on this was during the covid-19 height. The stimuli that have been printed like unstoppable for the aide to every citizen.

It's not only the citizens that have poured money to the Bitcoin economy but I guess also those who have a lot of money from their own pockets.

Government related and not. And that's one of the moments when we've seen that the more fiat printed by the government, impacts the price of BTC.

I didn't think about it, but maybe you are right: anyway, any crisis goes along with instability, and when it hits you, you buy gold and print more money that you control ;D It's usually the case for everyone around the globe.. People don't change, and their systems - too.

And once it happens again, we'd see how the price of Bitcoin will definitely going to pump.

They won't hesitate to do that once it's been approved or there's some emergence of doing it. Doing it usually is to counter some percentage of inflation.

So, if we'd see them do that again we'll see another reason why Bitcoin is mostly going to be up again. Nevertheless, long term holders are always winners.

Well, this is one of those reasons why Bitcoin keep coming back because there are countless of bitcoins around there are getting waste, being sent to wrong to adressess, forgotten keys and many more that acted like it’s being “burned” or burned supply. Actually we can consider that the holdings of Satoshi is also a burn supply and that makes the foundation more strong and stable.

Not normal but this isn’t a bad thing also. No one wants their bitcoins lost because it’s obviously a waste of money, but still those are supplies that can be the rock solid in the bottom. It’s not required to have specifically 1 BTC, since many are being lost, price will increase, buying 1 BTC at 120k now and in 0.5 BTC at 120k in the future is no difference, bitcoin just increased its price. It’s a bad thing to lose keys and not managing bitcoins very well but for long term hodl, it’s good thing since no one can really shake the market.

If you owned a bitcoin and I owned a bitcoin and they were the last two bitcoins in the world, what would the price be? Should we sell ours or part of them? How would selling them affect the price?

Would the Devs split the Satoshi so that more people could own them?

What if we were down to the last two Satoshi's in the world?

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