Bitcoin Forum

So, I was wondering what could happen when someone lost his access to his non custodial wallet or died in the eventually long run then,  I came
about this thread :)


I found some interesting replies but I wasn't satisfied though. My thought is , if bitcoin has a fixed amount that could be circulated then,what about the shortage due to some occurrence.

Among the replies I found one
I found this helpful but what of vice versa

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3951.0

This will probably never be a problem.

There are millions of Bitcoin around, and just a small percentage is lost. And the amount lost every year will be exponentially smaller over time,  as bitcoin value increase

Sub satoshi amounts are already being used in lighting network.

It is hard to calculate how many are forever lost  because they may just be on hold. Glassnode says about 10%, 2 million
https://medium.com/the-capital/how-many-bitcoin-are-lost-forever-34f2b48a6dba

Definitely the number of bitcoin that will be lost reducing gradually every day because the knowledge of how to hold one’s bitcoin is spreading rapidly and many people now know how to safeguard their coins.

So with the value increasing the act of protecting the coins will also increase. Also the lost bitcoins actually have its own effect on the circulating as it add value to the the ones in investors self custody as stated by Satoshi himself

So although it reduces the number in circulation it increases the value of it

I checked the link , and I found out 1 M BTC  still lies with Satoshi Nakamoto let's  just bring up assumption that he's/she's dead as nobody know whereabouts', orhe/she eventually died later with the funds still on hold what will happen  1M BTC gone forever ??

Over time its feasible that the supply will actually reduce for many reasons, for example:

Transfering to a wrong address or an address not accessible anymore
Losing access to a wallet either by user error or a non-custodial access restriction
Death of a wallet owner and loss of access.

In the end of the day there is a benefit to us all in that the supply is reduced.

What can we do?
Take full control of any coins, dont trust anyone else to hold them for you.

Bequeath your wallet to a relation or other in a will or safer by timelocking a transaction.

If the coins is completely gone and no one can access it, this can be said the owner is help Bitcoin become scarcer.

It's not really a matter if there are some coins gone forever, actually if there's an unknown person can access Satoshi or someone else coins, that just make people think Bitcoin is no longer safe because it's not secure for long term holding.

Bitcoin can be expressed into smaller units

For example
1 BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshi
0.001 BTC = 1mBTC = 100,000 Satoshi
and so on...

So you shouldn't worry about the lost Bitcoins or circulating supply, as the price goes higher. Owning 1 single Bitcoin becomes harder. Denominations of 0.1 BTC, 0.001BTC will become common and normal.

Well, it's generally an estimation that Satoshi Nakamoto holds 1 million or 1.1 million Bitcoin in his/her wallets. So far those Bitcoin are untouched and Satoshi never attempted to make any transaction out of those wallets till this day. Let's say that if Satoshi never touches those wallets and allow the funds to stay in those wallets then in that situations those BTC are gone forever as long as someone else doesn't have the private keys of the wallets where Satoshi stored those Bitcoin.

Let's say if someone knows the addresses of those wallets and has the private keys of those wallets of Satoshi Nakamoto then in that case the lost Bitcoin can be recovered and added into the market. Surely those may cause Bitcoin's price to go very low in value if they are added into market today. The investors will get a shock if they see 1 million more Bitcoin into the market and that's why most of them will sell their hold coins for cheap rates.

Well, many different sources put the number of bitcoins lost forever at 4 million, in some cases as high as 6 million.

Six Million Bitcoins Now Lost Forever? Why This Matters (https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/six-million-bitcoin-now-lost-forever-why-this-matters/#:~:text=Peterson%20shared%20a%20link%20to,14%20million%20BTC%20in%20circulation.)

Ask CryptoVantage: How Much Bitcoin Has Been Lost Forever? (https://www.cryptovantage.com/news/ask-cryptovantage-how-much-bitcoin-has-been-lost-forever/)

How Many Bitcoins Have Been Lost? (https://originstamp.com/blog/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-lost/)

As I think Satoshi said, this only has the effect of making the rest of the bitcoins more valuable. Eventually, if scarcity becomes too tight, subdivisions of satoshis could be established.

Let's say 10 Million bitcoins were lost due to many reasons we will still have 11 million Bitcoins in circulation which will be enough in my opinion and the lost 10 million bitcoins will do nothing but add value to the remaining 11 million bitcoins.

You were talking about a thread created in 2011 By that time BTC was worth 2 figures but in 2023 it was valued at 5 figures and sooner it can reach 6 figures I mean after the next halving so in my opinion people are not going to be careless with such valuable asset so chances of losing further bitcoins will be negligible and so it will not affect the circulation and create a shortage.

You are reading a way old post, but still, this circulatory problem exists. To be honest, I do not know about others. But yeah! I also have these types of discussions with myself. Like, what if I die and all the BTC I have goes to waste? So, I have a little brother, and I have told him about the funds I have but did not tell him how he could access them because he is still young and I do not want my BTC to be spent on some games.

So, I will just teach them until I have some point, and once I realise now is the time, then I might guide them about withdrawals and about keys. Till then, I am taking the risk of not telling anyone. I am honestly not doing it just because the satoshi will be wasted, because from one angle, that's good for the community, as the more BTC forbidden, the lesser the supply will be, and the more demand will increase the price of BTC.

I am doing it because I do not want my earnings to be wasted.

Telling a family member is the only way possible because I trust them more than some third-party company, which assures full confidence that they will provide the funds back but all they deduct is a small fee. hehe. I mean, why would I take the more risky option when I have a lesser one?

This is a logical reason that can be taken by the times, people are becoming more and more wary of saving their bitcoins because it is very valuable, different from the past when it was still said that it was not that valuable for many people who had it, for example, phasing seeds that were stored carelessly or Don't even save it somewhere you can look back on it in the future.
And today there are many people who store and store bitcoins properly so that they are safe from theft, and of course they will also store their seed money safely based on the awareness that bitcoins are very valuable. It's stored in a wallet which results in a lack of supply because it's stored in a wallet that can't be reopened, and this is a good thing because it keeps the bitcoin price from continuing to rise.

That old thread shows an expectation  and now it has come to past as this coin is now more established.  In short , what he said is now the present.

Lost Bitcoin is believed to be recycled back to the market stream without being stucked anywhere, as for those that always ask for how it all goes about, but yet even if this lost coins aren't circulated back to the network, do we think it's something that's going to affect the market demand and supply of bitcoin in the future base on the amount of bitcoin we have left to be mined, how many people do we have their statistics loosing bitcoin every months or year, compared to what we have on ground and the rate people make sure they avoid making mistakes in everything they do when making transactions.

Those bitcoins will never be accessible again. They just simply out of circulation forever. it's a very small percentage compared to the actual Bitcoin market cap. TBH if you have a few million dollars in somewhere then you will probably make a backup plan so that if something happens to you, your family members can get that. Most of the bitcoin that is out of circulation forever because of some unexpected incident happened when the price of bitcoin was very cheap so no one cared at that time.

I think people are getting wiser and making wiser decision concerning how they save Bitcoin, I don't think the amount of Bitcoin getting lost would be the same as we have always seen it to be and that's because of the steady awareness that is being spread about keeping your seed phrase and wallet safe.

I think it is not going to be a problem and as Bitcoin keeps getting more adoption services or ways to protect your Bitcoin wallet would be available for use.

Bitcoin getting lost is simply just more frequent for old wallets simply because they were worth crap back then but now are worth a good amount of money. If you hold a good amount of money in bitcoin/crypto and manage to lose the keys, sorry — but it's really just your fault due to carelessness, not the protocol's.

Heck, even gold gets lost. Someone out there probably managed to drop his/her gold ring/earring at sea or something; or probably accidentally flushes it down the toilet, etc.

The death of Satoshi Nakmoto has been a mystery no one knows if he died or not, The world does not know him nor do they see him so how they will know about his death? Let's come to the topic if Satoshi Nakamoto is dead and the private key is unknowable to someone else then this  1 M BTC will gone forever but in case if someone knows then it is possible to regain it. The total supply of BTC is capped at 21 M and if 1M is lost, there would be still 20M BTC left. However, it is important to back up your wallet on a daily basis if you lose your wallet key then with the help of this backup you can easily access your wallet.

You’re using a very old thread as reference, it’s been over 10 years and the bitcoin ecosystem has grown rapidly since then. People are more protective of their bitcoins as it’s worth more, I don’t think losing private keys is a popular problem as it used to be ten years ago.


I doubt Satoshi will ever move his bitcoins. Any movement of those bitcoins would cause a panic in the crypto market and also trigger governments and people to go on a witch hunt to track Satoshi even more than normal. This is something I believe Satoshi would want to risk, those bitcoins will forever be locked away as long as Satoshi identity is to remain hidden.

If you lost your wallet access permanently, just consider it a gift for the entire Bitcoin community. Because your lost Bitcoin went out of circulation supply. Though it won't impact hugely on the price still it benefits the entire Bitcoin community by reducing circulation. It's just a scenario, not expecting a loss for anyone. Just secure your wallet credentials offline and to multiple places. So even missing one other will help. Maintain a personal notebook that could help to recover your crypto assets in case you passed away. So your next generation could recover it somehow.

Shortage of BTC seems not to be a problem while it's shortage means there will be lesser btc in the market and demand we all know is increasing day by day. And one day comes the shortage will cause huge pump in the price of btc then how can it be called as a problem. I hope now you understand that if the supply is getting lower then in the following time value of BTC will increase.

Coming back to the solution of your problem. Which in reality seems not to be a problem. There might be many ways and I mere search for any. The best way is definitely is to share about your assets with your loved ones. But even with family members you have to be selective. let's say you have brothers and sisters and you shared the details with couzin. In my opinion it is best share about assets details with the sibling most near to you.

Other then sharing knowledge with family, you might not find any best way.

I also don't find it a problem either.  Aside from Bitcoin, there are other means of payment and there are also altcoins that can be used if Bitcoin becomes very rare and expensive.  The world wouldn't die if there were lots of bitcoin being lost.  It will only give more value to the existing coins and people will treasure it more.

Aside from that Bitcoin transaction can be done through satoshi and there are  2,100,000,000,000,000‬ satoshi in total and I believe half of it is more than enough to fuel global transaction. If that is not enough, Bitcoin developers can easily fork it without making Bitcoin's maximum supply any bigger by introducing new units smaller than satoshi.

it's a problem for some people and not for others,  it's good for people.. who hold bitcoin, means in long run the bitcoin will become scarce and it's value rises and it will be more expensive and they can get out with high profits.
it's not good for those who transact small amounts because it will cause rise in transaction fees.
businesses will face difficulty pricing their product or services with less bitcoin available, it can be difficult for businesses and people to determine the right price for things using bitcoin, because as Bitcoin becomes increasingly scarce, its value keeps increasing, making it difficult to know how much bitcoin to use to buy or sell products or services.

If a person dies and has some Bitcoins in a wallet with no one able to access them, his Bitcoins will remain there until someone can access them. If no one can access it, the number will remain and won't be a problem.

We must remember that Satoshi also left a very large amount of Bitcoin in his wallet and that no one has accessed or transferred to another wallet. And it doesn't affect the circulation of Bitcoin in circulation or the price of Bitcoin (probably not yet). That means the number of Bitcoins in circulation will decrease by an amount with Bitcoins that their original owners cannot access.

And that would probably make Bitcoin even more valuable as it reduces the total amount, possibly increasing the price even higher. But those are all scenarios while we are still on the Bitcoin journey and not all Bitcoins have been mined yet. That's why we don't know what will happen in the future and can only speculate.

First, I sympathize with anyone who has lost a loved one, especially if they left behind unreachable digital possessions. Its about the money, memories, and personal goals for those assets. Moving on to your Bitcoin scenario: The anticipated drop in circulating supply could raise demand if other conditions remain constant. Is Satoshi's stockpile a good example?

While a less supply may raise Bitcoin's price, other things also affect it. Regulatory actions, technological advances, and economic issues may be important. Not to be too philosophical, but it raises important concerns about digital wealth's impermanence and how society handles it. Our "Bitcoin journey" is ongoing - we're all learning, adjusting, and speculating about its future.

In time to come, the price of Bitcoin will be so high that the amount of Bitcoin in circulation will be relatively larger than the number of lost bitcoins, and as such, a little fraction of Bitcoin will worth a lot of money . Already, Bitcoin has a limited supply, and if the circulating supply of Bitcoin is less due to some lost Bitcoin, it will still make the value of Bitcoin increase with respect to demands. Because, like you said, Bitcoin happens to be a generally accepted or used currency worldwide, that means demand will increase and value will increase. Also, by then, people will be more careful not to lose their assets.

In the end, no one is able to use it because you are the one who has full access to it unless you give a last will that you have this kind of asset, Their funds will be stored to their wallet, and we can do anything with it, this will becomes one of the sleeping wallet from the previous years, but if this is one of the largest wallet holder and this happen to the owner its just added to the holders, it's like in a bottom of the sea all of the coins can't access anymore, will be leave and be forgotten.

What you say makes sense, but we also have to see that a small amount of circulating supply can make the price rise. Likewise, what will happen to Bitcoin when the supply becomes smaller? It can increase the price of Bitcoin even though that cannot happen in a short time.

And if the supply that Satoshi has remained in his wallet and will not be used forever, the number of Bitcoins on the market will also decrease. Especially if more and more people can hold large amounts of Bitcoin in their wallets and wait for the price they want before they sell it. But it's all just speculation. We don't know what will happen in the future.

It's possible that later Satoshi will sell his Bitcoin. And if that happens, the market will be shocked and people will panic. Maybe they will also sell Bitcoin instantly because they don't want to make a loss. All scenarios remain scenarios because we don't know what will happen. And don't let ourselves be trapped by scenarios created by people.

I think this is a reasonable one though. But let's look it from this aspect ,what if satoshi has it in mind to release this BTC in future little by little due to scarcity because have been wondering why this amount of BTC is still on hold .

It becomes a digital treasure that cannot even be opened anymore and becomes an inscription, so the total available Bitcoin assets will only move on assets held by active holders.

So the importance of giving access to the wallet to a trusted party will provide an opportunity for successors to access these assets.
This kind of digital legacy of Bitcoin assets will certainly provide many benefits and become a volatile legacy and will have different prices in the future.

From several responses above, many mention that the lost Bitcoins are often those stored in wallets with unknown private keys or wallets that have been inactive for a long time.

So, perhaps this isn't a concern for me as long as the amount of Bitcoin lost in that wallet is relatively small. Because every wallet still has the potential to be revived and used for transactions as long as the private key exists. Among us all, can anyone ensure that Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet has lost its private key? Not making transactions doesn't necessarily mean it's inaccessible anymore. That would be horrifying, wouldn't it?

Even if it's an old wallet containing BTC from 2009 - 2012, is there still a chance for it to be resurrected? Even if it's just a 0.1% chance, because the reason "inactive for a long time" cannot yet be considered a valid benchmark.

Bitcoins lost are lost, and I don't see this ever becoming a problem, in-fact, I will even say that the lost Bitcoins is to the advantage or good of those holding Bitcoin because, I believe we all know how cryptocurrencies works, in the sense that , the more limited the max and total supply of a coin or token is, the higher it's value depending on adoption and usage .

So if some good number of Bitcoin out of the 21 million total supply is lost, (which like we all know that a good number is lost already ), it only makes Bitcoin more valuable since those lost coins are out of the market but still share in the total market capitalization of Bitcoin, so this means that the lost coins only help improve Bitcoin market cap, but can't be sold, which is a good thing for the price of Bitcoin .

Well, it makes BTC more valuable, but we're not able to know how much BTC is lost exactly. It's not really good if we want to use BTC as a currency. But it's great if you look at BTC only as on investment.

I don't think that amount of bitcoin can be limited because there are large number of bitcoins and people are buying a small portions of these bitcoin as a whole bitcoin is difficult to buy due to increasing price.

Now a days everyone is sharing their ideas and work with family or friends so if some dies and his bitcoin remains in his wallet then surely there will be one person who will have access towards his investment but if there is not such a person exists then it is not a big deal because large number of other bitcoin are present here.

If circulations of bitcoin reduces then the price will be more than present one because more bitcoin here will have less price and less bitcoin will have more price due to demand of the people for bitcoin.

I've had a positive experience trading on Bitcoin Circulation, and I'm excited to see where this platform goes in the future. If you're looking for a reliable crypto exchange, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.

Remember, Bitcoin is digitally scarce - its maximum supply is 21 million. While people do purchase fractions (called Satoshis), the total number doesn't increase. As for lost Bitcoin, you're right in thinking someone might have access, but there's an alarming number of Bitcoins assumed 'lost' forever. As for your thought on price dynamics: absolutely! Supply and demand fundamentals play out in Bitcoin's valuation. Fewer coins in circulation could push prices up, although external factors always sway the market. In Bitcoin we trust, right?

The bigger question is:

When miners reach the peak of their hashrate, they are profitable because the hashrate curve is steeper for now. However, just as it happened in the past, Bitcoin rewards will halve for miners in the future. This means that the hashrate curve will become less steep, and miners will have less time and fewer rewards until they reach the marginal point. So, it will be easier to persuade them not to secure the network but, on the contrary, to attack it. Here's the question: What will be the security of the network in the next five halvings?


I found this helpful but what of vice versa

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3951.0


[/quote]

Lost Bitcoins will never be an issue since people will never be able to dump the price. We must be concerned about people who have a large amount of Bitcoin and purchased it at a low price because they may dump the price if they decide to sell their Bitcoins. If Bitcoin ever becomes the world currency or legal tender, I will keep my Bitcoin in multiple wallets so that if I lose the private key or passphrase, I can still access the other wallets. It's a wise choice.

The issue of lost Bitcoin is someone who previously had access to the wallet, while in general aka other people that don't have access to the coins, that's not an issue. Actually if someone lost their coins, it's good as it make Bitcoin become more scarcer and hopefully the price should be increased.

You must be happy if Bitcoin price will increase isn't?

Simple to understand is that when your bitcoin lost then price will remains higher and there will no bad thing occur in crypto market but that person who lost his bitcoin due to his own fault or some other reason will be in loss.

Just lower quantity does not increase the price but there are also lots of other factors due to which price does not remain stable. I think now A days everyone is so wise that they keep their private information very secure so there is a less chances to loss their assets but if unfortunately they forget it then there is way to recover it back.

The death of the Bitcoin owner will sometimes the death of it's holdings as well. Death comes may surprise us and we are not ready to hand our private keys to the rightful heir and that death could be the rise of those who are living hodlers. We all know that scarcity makes the price fly to the moon and that is the time we will remember it's significance. I think forgetting something is like the death of something.

Yes, it's true, If a person dies and has many Bitcoins or a single Bitcoin and he loses access to his non-custodial wallet, this will be lost forever. So to prevent Bitcoin from being wasted it is necessary to make a backup of the wallet and store it in different places or you may use a hardware wallet which also reduces the risk of bitcoins from wastage.



This debate has been started among the bitcoiners for many years. Some believe that it's not a big problem because they said if some percent of bitcoin is lost then the mining of bitcoin every day will refill that lost percent of bitcoins while some say that it is a problem because bitcoin eventually becomes too scarce to be used as a currency, as more and more bitcoin is to be lost it will reduce the supply of bitcoin which will lead to the sectors where bitcoin is too valuable to use for everyday transaction.

There are several topics in its context, custody, inheritance, bitcoin in circulation, among others. The reality is that if someone loses their bitcoin by forgetting their keys, etc. It is only making the circulation of bitcoin less and therefore indirectly that will influence its price over time.

The forum is full of your concerns, only the points of view change or the context changes, but in a way you always arrive at the same thing, manage a retirement system, which includes your assets and liabilities, the majority of those that reach the forum with the idea of what to do, they forget about their liabilities, debts are something they must manage too, it seems the same, but it is about liabilities, whatever, the most used formula It is inheritance*.

Cryptocurrencies are governed by the laws of each country, it is not just about leaving them secret keys, which is why getting advice based on your country can clearly determine the best way to "deliver"* your bitcoin.