Bitcoin Forum

I was reading about some cases of people who had many BTC at a time when it has low or no value at all, and didn't care about it, so they eventually lost their security phrases, or hard wallets and now it is lost probably forever.

I've read that the amount that is considered lost can be up to 5 million BTC. That is about 1/4 of the total amount available.

Knowing that BTC has a limit, and we're getting there soon, isn't it possible to have some compensation for those lost BTC?

Something like adding more BTC in an equivalent amount for those lost BTC, or something similar.

Would it be positive for the currency or could bring some caos?

No, lost bitcoin are gone forever. If you want to recover any lost bitcoin, try all possible way to recover back the private key or the seed phrase.

Just like what centralized ripple (XRP) developers wants to do. It is not making any sense. Private key or seed phrase are used to prove the ownership of an address and that is also needed to spend the coins, which is enough.

Compensation, like, how? Do you mean rewarding those who have lost their bitcoin or adding those back to the supply? Whichever the case might be, it won't work as you can't add more to the supply, nor is anybody willing to donate his or her bitcoin to those who lost theirs.

One thing that makes Bitcoin unique is its limited supply. It was possible that it could have been manipulated long ago, and the limited supply is what contributes to its price value as demand increases, so it will become scarce in the market.

If that is ever made possible to increase the supply for whatever reason, there will only be negative impacts on the network. Those lost bitcoins, according to Satoshi, are a contribution to the network; they're considered a donation for the rest of the holders to gain more value.

I mean adding it back to the supply to be available for mining again.

Giving it back to the owners would be impossible, or if possible, it would be ridiculous, as each owner should take care of their BTC.

Exactly, and adding more Bitcoin in the total supply will destroy and bring chaos to it's existence. If someone can possibly gues the private keys or seed phrases of those lost Bitcoins he or she got that one in a trillion luck.

Any bitcoin lost is not going to be recovered anymore, though it is believed that such has been released back to the bitcoin network and we all benefited a share of its fragments in the market volatility when the price increase.


Not possible, there's no evidence to proof this, we still have a lot of bitcoin in circulation and even the whales couldn't made this happens by holding their asset.


compensation in what form again, are you not making interest upon your asset when you hodl and the market pumps, where do you think part of those funds are coming from.



No, that 21 million bitcoin cannot be altered just as the white paper cannot be.

Those lost Bitcoins and forgotten are totally forgotten and lost forever. That's the compensation for us that it becomes scarcer and the supply limit is even lower because of them.

That means, with the number of many investors in the market and with a lot of lost Bitcoins totally. There are limited Bitcoins that are in circulation.

This is why holding bitcoin is good for the long term investors.

Not all coins that haven't been moved for years are lost forever
Some are just holding or temporary have no access to their wallet and this are usually branded as lost.
The number of lost coin are estimated not fully known
So even if Bitcoin protocol could enable such (the community ain't foolish to do such ) it would be nigh impossible to get the right number to add.

If the supply of Bitcoin could be easily altered then what differentiate it from shit coins.
It's limited supply plays a central part in it's value.
Lost Bitcoin despite the pains it would cause would increase the value of Bitcoin as goes on
And unfortunately more coins would be lost within the mining years of Bitcoin.

Lost Bitcoin can still be found if the private key lost or wallet password was found.


Even in the case of Fiat.  If you lost your money at your personal disposal the government ain't compensating you
This also applies with Bitcoin
I see no reason for compensation for something they have no fault in.

I do wonder how those people feel right now that bitcoin is gaining more and more in demand hiking its price even more. I am thinking maybe they have bought bitcoin again despite the wasted opportunity


The supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million nothing more, nothing less. It is highly unlikely for the system of bitcoin to change just so it can add more. Plus, the supply being limited helps in case of inflation and this allows to drive up the demand more.

If bitcoin were unlimited, its demand might not be as high right now.

What's gone is gone it won't be back anytime, but my fellow you should focus on the available supply to accumulate the maximum possible number to secure your standing in this digital currency era. As you feel sad for those lost coins haha, anyway more supply and lesser demand = lower valuation, on the same time if supply is limited and higher demand = higher valuation in the market.

Some of the people use to say are we late or its too late to own Bitcoins now, I would say you should need to realize that its never late still we in the single digit of the halving count so how it can be late.

Any lost Bitcoin wallet password, private key or phase code is gone forever and is consider it as burned token until the world end, it can not be trade or transfer, it only remains in the wallet that is not active and it only counts as among the Bitcoin holders wallet.

There are many discussions on this topic, I even read in some sources about mutch more large estimated quantities of lost coins, but you know, I won’t say that I can trust any of them enough to accept this information as truth. It doesn’t matter that Bitcoin was once not so expensive, if the coin has value, then the owner will care about maintaining access to his coins in any case.

Another thing is that I admit cases when the owner could, simply out of caution, or simply did not have time, hand over the keys to someone close to him, and these coins could be lost forever, but it’s hard for me to believe that the number of lost coins can be calculated millions.

It is an estimation which is based on inactive UTXOs. You can make different estimations by using different age threshold of considered lost bitcoins. If you consider 5year+ inactive UTXOs are for lost bitcoins, you have estimation A. If you consider 7year+ inactive UTXOs are for lost bitcoins, you will have an estimation B. Estimation A would be bigger than estimation B.

It can not be done because Bitcoin transactions can not be reversed. Bitcoin blockchain can not be rolled back.

If there is any proposal to create more bitcoins, to make total supply is bigger than 21M, the majority will support that proposal.

Lost bitcoins are donation to everyone.

But why? Lost bitcoins are lost, for whatever reason.  Why would we want to reintroduce them back into circulation? To increase supply? But why? It would just mean that all other bitcoins would be worth less. This is exactly what we have with fiat currency printing, where increasing the money supply can lead to inflation.


Giving them to someone else would be even more ridiculous. What if you mistakenly take someone's long-term hodl for lost coins? How would you define "lost" coins anyway?

OP,

The lost bitcoin are not nearly 5 million. People like to exaggerate the number of lost bitcoin. It's probably about 2 million, maybe slightly over 2 million. The way people get really exaggerated numbers is they just assume any coins that haven't been moved in a certain number of years are lost, so with time these estimates will continue getting higher even if no more coins are lost, because lots of people hold long term for many years without touching their bitcoin. So it's more like one tenth of the supply is lost, not one quarter.


And no the lost bitcoins will never be added back to the supply.

First off, there is no way to know how many bitcoin are lost, so it would just be guesswork.

But the real reason of course is that this is not how Bitcoin works. The 21 million supply cap is one of the most fundamental things about Bitcoin. And so is its decentralization. You lose those things and you pretty much lose the value of Bitcoin. And to start adding coins to the supply you would lose both of those things, because obviously adding new coins means the supply is not capped anymore, and that suggests that now people are able to control the supply of bitcoin, no different than fiat currencies, which also means people could decide to add more bitcoin for other reasons. If Bitcoin were centralized you could technically do it, pretty much any other cryptocurrency could make this sort of change, but Bitcoin is decentralized and nobody can just decide to make some change in the protocol, the community must agree to it and the community would never agree to such a thing. You ask if it would cause chaos, well it would basically destroy much of the value proposition of Bitcoin, making it much more like altcoins or fiat currencies, so yeah I'd call that chaos, in addition to the fact that it can't even be technically done!

And the other main reason is there is no reason to do this in the first place. It's not like there has to be 21 million bitcoin in circulation. There is nothing wrong with some bitcoins being lost. So even if it were possible to do it (which as just explained, it isn't), and even if it wouldn't completely destroy some of the fundamental tenets and value of Bitcoin (which as just explained, it would), and if it was even possible to know how many bitcoin are lost (which it isn't), there is simply no logical reason why it should be done. There is no reason to create new bitcoins to replace lost bitcoins. Hell, not even fiat currencies work this way - if you burn a $100 bill you don't contact the central bank and tell them to print an extra $100 because you burnt it.

So it is neither practical, possible, desired, nor logical to do this.

How do you determine which Coins are lost and which are not?

I have Addresses I have not used in MANY years.  I likely have a few Private Keys or Seeds hidden somewhere in the middle of some random note book.  These Coins are not lost.

Think about it.  Some body may have died a decade ago with a Seed hidden between two pages of a book.  Their relatives may decide to read that book in 2050.  Would that be lost Coins?

There are dormant Addresses since 2010 and the likes which have moved recently.  This is why we rather call it DORMANT Addresses and not Lost.

And then it does not make any sense.  Why would there be a compensation for the lost Bitcoin.  With Bitcoin you are responsible for your own actions.  You decided to not take care of the Bitcoin?  It is what it is.  The Coins are lost.  Move on.  I bet there are many who do not even remember they ever had Bitcoin back in 2009 on their computer.  Their Hard Disk is laying somewhere in the middle of a giant pile of trash and will probably never be retrieved ever.

Why would Miners earn more Bitcoin and why would we all have more Inflation for others mistake.

Lost Coins are just never going to be moved.  That is all.

I don't think that is possible to add more BTC in total supply means mint or mine additional btc. that's not doable.
that might be possible in term of development and coding. but that's not enough. everyone in bitcoin ecosystem have to agree on that to make that happen which I don't think will ever happen.
But lets say that happens and additional bitcoins are added to total supply. how do you think we can compensate them to those who lost them? how will they prove their ownership of those btc? I don't see anyway of doing that.

No bitcoin is lost, the bitcoin are only locked up in the users wallet address in the blockchain, and if the users can have their private keys to those wallets, the bitcoin will be unlock with the private keys. However, those bitcoin cannot be replaced because they are not missing but the owners still have them locked up in the blochain, and it will be useless to compensate them because who will give out his own bitcoin to them. 21million bitcoin cannot be added to or reduced from. This is why we need to secure our seed phrase and have back ups, so that we will have access to them anytime we want.

It's true that in my opinion Bitcoins are simply not or have not been accessed again by their owners. Bitcoin holders or owners who lose their phrase actually only lose the private key used to access Bitcoin. Losing the private key does not mean losing Bitcoin. Bitcoins will remain in the wallet forever and cannot be taken by anyone or even lost.

Maybe the owner just forgot or hasn't found the private key yet.

I lost a million BTC myself. I'll be waiting for my compensation ::)

If this were implemented, everybody on the planet would claim it.

If you say that the bitcoin is lost because the seed phrase that your bitcoin was placed in has been lost, I think that your bitcoin is not totally lost, unless someone else knows your seed phrase. Because the only thing that will happen is that the Bitcoin amount that you have in your seed phrase account is hidden. Or, in other words, he is only in contact with the Bitcoin account address of the holder.

Now, when you say that your bitcoin is gone, either your bitcoin address was hacked or you clicked a phishing link, obviously this scenario is a hacking issue or, for some other reason, we sent it to another bitcoin address.

All these you are mentioning can only be possible in centralized system which some people are under control of the whole process.

BTC is decentralized and nothing of such can be done. People that lost their security seed phrases did not probably know about the importance of it in the nearly future that’s why the misplaced them.
Now that the whole world knows the value of Bitcoin compaction cannot be done because these people don’t even have any evidence of been a one time Bitcoin holders; nevertheless, those who lost their Bitcoin due to mistakes should have bought more a while back when the price down.

Actually, I believed at it at first as with no effects in its market value however if the amount among many people who lost control of their holdings would be hige, then t least it will have an impact to this industry. Bitcoin should circulate in this market in order to contribute with both demand and supply. Imagine if all investors won't be able to move their holdings to other investors. Will there be price changes? Demand woud be high indeed but as long as no transaction is being made between buyers and sellers, then nothing would make sense. Being in such situation is a bad thing. We witnessed how huge the potential of Bitcoin is, from previous ATH. Given that market is showing positive outlook especially with the next Bitcoin halving, I will fully understand those investors who forgot their keys to access their early investment accounts.

Re-adding lost bitcoins to all supply is a controversial proposition in the cryptocurrency community.  The total supply of Bitcoin is limited to 21 million.  Which is a fundamental feature of Bitcoin and underpins its value proposition.  However trust in a finite supply of bitcoins may be undermined if bitcoins are resupplied out of sympathy for users who have lost access to their bitcoins.  Currently there is considered to be a balance between Bitcoin's widespread adoption and value contribution and Bitcoin's loss.

You are missing up some words, it's called "seed phrase" and not security phrase, and it's called hardware wallet and not hard wallet. I hope you understand.
Once theee are loss, the bitcoin in that wallet is as good as gone, it will be there but you can't have access to it again because you can't spend them.


When you said compensate? Where do you get the bitcoins to compensate them from? Charity? Exchange or you want to give them your bitcoin?

First, you need to know that nobody can know if private keys or seed phrase to a wallet address has been loss because the bitcoin will remain unspent in that wallet address forever until someone who have the private keys, so you and I can't tell and the Bitcoin community cannot tell if a wallet is unaccessible.
You should have seen some wallet of 10 years ago been move, how do you even tell if some of those wallets are inaccessible by the owners.




Even Shitcoins with foundations that knows about their investors losses and wallets hacks don't compensate their investors, it's bitcoin that depend on miners reward before the circulating supply can be increase that you want them to compensate? Bitcoin is not some banks that can help you recover money or compensate you when you make mistakes, always remember that not your keys not your coins.

If lost bitcoins are replaced, it will have a negative effect on the value of bitcoins which we expect to be increasing. When the number of bitcoins in circulation continues to reduce, the value of bitcoins available will be increasing. If these bitcoins were replaceable the value of bitcoins will never be expected to increase via that situation.

Just as everyone has said, if your BTC is lost, it is lost!

For your information, there are services out there that help those who lost or can't remember their seed phrases get access to their bitcoin. It cost a lot of money and it is like a 50-50 percent chance that it would be recovered or not.

In my estimation, the compensation form lost bitcoin is for more guides to teach people how to safely secure their Bitcoins so that there will not be more Bitcoin lost. It is to prevent more Bitcoin losses in the future.

I don't think this is about deposits in private banks or government-owned banks getting compensation if the assets held there are lost.
Loss of assets is absolutely the responsibility of the owner. If Bitcoin is an asset that has been lost, then no compensation will be obtained. The question is, where will we collect the lost BTC?

Even assets held in private banks or government-owned banks will not immediately provide compensation if the loss occurs and is not caused by them on the part of the bank.
The one who has complete control over Bitcoin ownership is the owner. If you lose the key, you will lose Bitcoin from your Bitcoin ownership status. The number of Bitcoins has not changed, remaining 21 million.

Any dead wallet is considered burnt address, that is to say if there are any bitcoin in those wallet and the owner lost access it means those coin is burned down, in other hands it has helped to reduced the total supply but if there were ways for the owner to recover that wallet then we consider that person to be excessively wealthy because with whatever amount they had in their wallet considering the current amount that person is made. So, whenever a private key or seed phrase are being misplaced then we can consider that to be gone forever. While holding bitcoin you should consider the security of your wallet otherwise whatever that happens to your seed phrase we can say your investment are no place to be found.

Rather than adding more currency, devs thought that it's better to just increase the divisibility of each bitcoin if the value is too high. This way, the value of each bitcoin will not be affected and there wouldn't be too much of a fuss from parties that hold a huge number of coins which could eventually lead to a sell-off. It's better to limit the total amount of bitcoins rather than add more to the supply.

Taking back the lost Bitcoin to add it to the supply wouldn't be achievable because if they do that it means our coin ain't safe because definitely they can access anyone's wallet and claim their Bitcoin as well and moreover, do you know if they actually lost or forgot the seed phrases of their wallet? because some persons can actually buy Bitcoin with the intention to leave it in their non custodial wallets for a very long interval of time without accessing it and it would now look as though they've forgotten their seed phrases and any attempt to either add or subtract the quantity of Bitcoin remaining to be mined will become an error in the process.

A lost bitcoin is a lost bitcoin as no form of recovery without the seed phrases would be obtainable so it would just be stucked there forever after all the owner who lost control of it also bought it with money so if he loses it then it's actually his brunt to bear that's the more reason why Bitcoin is trustworthy because it can never be manipulated unlike fiat whereby if something of such occurs they can maneuver and manipulate it, so it is important to keep seed phrases safe and secured and make an offline backup so that in a case of losing it one can easily recover it. Moreover, what of a situation whereby the owner dies? So no one can inherit the coin because that is what stands bitcoin out as there is nothing like a mediator to ones assets.

There is a particular limit, and scaling beyond the limit for the purpose of adding those lost bitcoins doesn't seem to be a fair process. Because when someone recovers the recovery phrase and gets back his lost bitcoin, the idle bitcoin gets active in the network. To avoid such issues, it is good to stay within the limits. Every bitcoin has its own owner, and someone losing it is their fault, and the network shouldn't be altered for the same.

Bitcoin has a limited supply and we just can't change that anymore whatever we do, If we could easily compensate for the lost Bitcoin in the wallets, and then give it back on the supply in the market that could have a huge effect on the market and it just means that the Bitcoin supply increase which is not possible, Also that's what makes Bitcoin unique having a limited supply and one of the reasons why it has a volatile market price in the market if you have lost Bitcoin then sorry for your lose, it's your fault losing that seed phrase, it cannot be recovered anymore. For sure it is going to break Bitcoin if we are able to completely change what Bitcoin is including the supply of Bitcoin itself.

On the other hand, losing Bitcoin means it wouldn't be moved in the wallet anymore meaning the supply just decreased increasing the market value of Bitcoin since the supply is limited, it's not totally a bad thing it has both negative and positive effects on Bitcoin I guess.

There are many users who lost access to their wallets and they can no longer move their bitcoins forever. Meanwhile, there are many wallets that have been inactive for years and we never know whether their owners still have access or not. I'm sure it's difficult to determine which coins are missing and which wallets have lost access - so I don't think your idea is a good one.

Bitcoin users do not get any compensation if they lose access to their wallets - so be careful with security methods if you are not an expert. Practice commonly recommended security methods - this can make you more likely to get help and useful advice when you need help.

I choose your last point.

The loss of Bitcoin represents a poignant time for other features of the cryptocurrency, especially its immutable and decentralized nature.  Whether due to a user's forgotten password or incorrect key and hardware failure, the importance of keeping records securely and accurately is immense.  However lost can never be brought back. Moreover, it is not possible to create the amount that has been lost. Because it will bring about a huge change in the basic features of Bitcoin and will have a severe impact on the user

How exactly those that claim to have lost their coins could make a legitimate claim this was the case? How can they prove they were the former owner of those lost coins? When the only way to prove this is by signing a message from that address, but the act of signing itself proves those coins are not lost.

So there is not a feasible way to do this and I am sure most of us are already fine with this, besides as long as the coins lost are not yours, I do not see the reason to worry about what other people did or did not with their coins.

OP, can I ask you what you had in mind when you wrote this post?


Didn't you respond to that thread stating that there is a limited supply of bitcoin? Moreover, how can you find out how many bitcoins are actually lost and how many are regularly lost due to the fault of the owners? Will this information be correct?
I don't see your logic.

The idea that 5 million BTC are forever lost shows human fallibility and blockchain's immutability. Does recompense for these digital relics even matter? Assigning more BTC as restitution violates the 21 million cap. Doesnt this limit warn against carelessness? Even adding BTC to offset losses contradicts Bitcoin's scarcity and worth.


Such a step would cause tangible pandemonium. Imagine Bitcoin's market reaction - trust in its unchanging supply is crucial. Tampering with it risks currency credibility. I believe the path to compensation is dangerous and should be avoided.

The base unit of Bitcoin is Satoshies. Each Bitcoins is equal to 100 Million Satoshies. So 21 million x 100 milllion is quite a big number.

Lets say about 5 Million Bitcoin are lost, that leaves still 16 million x 100 million Satoshies, still quite a lot.

So I see no reason to speculate how the "lost" Bitcoin can be replaced.....

When you lose the seedphrase to your bitcoin wallet, the bitcoin is lost and there's no compensation from anywhere. Also, there's no way to know a coin that has been lost forever and the bitcoin that's comfortably seating on a wallet, waiting to be moved in some years to come.

Bitcoin has a max supply of 21 million, every Bitcoin lose is lost forever, more Bitcoin cannot be minted to compensate or make up for the lost Bitcoin.

It has no negative effect on the network, rather it helps to reduce the circulating supply of Bitcoin.

Creating new BTC to replace that which were lost at some point due to certain things is not going to be really healthy for the currency, because it may cause some chaos as you did mentioned because even that which is currently available is about to be reached like you said so trying to bring back thst which was lost can cause some kind of chaos both on the block chain and transections, it may aswell affect the price of Bitcoin, currently Bitcoin is about to experience halving and this alone will help with reducing the number of available Bitcoin so being the lost ones back is just more or less chaotic.

Well, if you have a money that is locked forever, even if you know that it is there, but it can't be used or moved, than it can be considered lost, can't it? hahaha

"Not your keys - not your coins."

All those who lost bitcoins should have carefully monitored their safety.

It would be interesting to know about your method for counting lost bitcoins. What data did you use to guide your analysis?

For compensation go to the bank. Although they are reluctant to return any compensation.

What is lost, let it remain lost from now on and forever and ever.

This will lead to a depreciation of the current bitcoins. Additional emissions will lead to cheaper prices. The value of bitcoin is in its limitations.

As far as I know, this topic has been discussed before by the members. And the answer to this is impossible. We cannot compensate for this by adding a supply of 5 million bitcoins to the Bitcoin hard code, because that would compromise the integrity of Bitcoin. Just let those millions of Bitcoins sit in those abandoned wallets because it's none of our business to be able to take care of that.

If we can and we start adding more because some got lost, it messes with the scarcity that makes Bitcoin attractive. Plus figuring out who gets compensated and how could turn into a huge headache, causing drama in the crypto world. It's like trying to fix one problem but creating a bunch of new ones

It will be a loop that scares many investors.

Because if we can add more bitcoins, just say, to fill what were lost. We can do the same but to increase Bitcoin total supply to any number we want, and the new added supply can exceed what were lost.

Like we have 5M lost bitcoins, we can create 5M bitcoin to fill what were lost. Later we can create 5M or 10M or 21M more bitcoins, to do whatever we want and no longer care about lost bitcoins.

I've heard sometimes ago of one site managed by a father and son CryptoAssetRecovery.com that promises to try recovering crypto wallets if you've your encrypted private keys and somehow forgot the password to the wallet, or a damaged hard drive containing the private keys. The chances are very limited though, but its worth the try depending on how much assets you've in the wallet.
But I'll advise that you're very careful of the services you're hiring and do your researches properly, so you don't get scammed in the process and your coins lost.

That's absolutely nonsense, what if the owners of those coins finds a way of retrieving it in the future, then there will be more supply than the standard figure. That suggests non-authenticity of the coin. Those lost coins should remain that way, so that bitcoin will continue to be limited in supply and as simple economics tells us. "Decrease in supply will in turn cause an increase in demand"
This leads to the value of the commodity increasing and I think this is an added advantage for bitcoin.

There is no method of returning lost bitcoins caused by carelessness and loss of the wallet seed phrase that we have will be completely lost. That's why we need to consider the level of security and we have to store the seed phrase well so as not to lose the bitcoin assets we own. In the past, people might not have cared about security because the price of Bitcoin was not that valuable, but nowadays, almost many people's main priority is just security and taking good care of the seed phrase generated from their wallet.

What is lost remains lost forever when the Seed phrase is the problem and there is no way to recover bitcoin assets if that is the case. Therefore, special attention must be paid to security issues before everything is lost and what people feel is a lesson so that we can be more careful.

That's the beauty of bitcoin. If you lose it, you lose it forever.
That's how people will take it seriously otherwise nobody would care to keep their private keys safe and there would be lot's of hacking incidents with bitcoin private keys.
But the way bitcoin is designed makes it nearly impossible to modify the supply or the algorithm.
That's how you become the "Owner" of your coins.

Would not this increase the maximum supply of Bitcoin?  Aside from that, implementing this thing will bring chaos to the system.  It might unintentionally bring back the idle Bitcoin that is not lost but are just sitting on the address for hodling sake.  If the implementation is erasing the lost Bitcoin and bringing it back for mining, it is more disastrous because as I stated, accidentally deleting Bitcoin that is not lost will cause a huge loss to the owners.

Just leave Bitcoin as is, let the Bitcoin that can't be accessed be keep out of the market circulation.  It will bring rarity and increase the value of the coins.  Besides there is plenty of satoshi to trade with even if people market has no access to half of the Bitcoin supply.


Bitcoin is not designed to be centralized and that is one of the big factors why Bitcoin is the King of cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin wallets that lose their security systems will lose their Bitcoins forever, never to be recovered. So the lost bitcoins will be subtracted from the total supply, making a quarter of the total supply of bitcoins considered as lost bitcoins. All these lost bitcoins will become completely zero value with no chance of ever adding to the total supply.

There are no accurate estimates of how much BTC is actually lost vs how much is just inactive because the owners don't want to move it anywhere. Assuming that BTC is lost if it wasn't moved over several years (and that's exactly what some estimates do) isn't really fair. Maybe someone lost a password, but can accidentally find it in the future. Maybe someone has access to coins but is such a hodler that enjoys keeping the funds in an unmoving state.
There will be no compensation for the lost coins (and I am sorry for people who lost their coins), but there's also no need for that because Bitcoin is divisible into satoshis.

their biggest mistake, why do that lol. It should have been recorded, printed, laminated and put in a safe, so that something like this wouldn't happen, but never mind, it's gone, right?

That's good, I think this is good news, there are 5 million BTC that are being burned independently, so the price can be controlled, I can't imagine if that 5 million BTC enters the market, how bad the BTC market will be. but the 5 million is already in hell, so it's okay.

what kind of compensation? I don't think there is any way to recover it, it will be lost forever, or maybe later it can be unlocked with a super quantum computer or something, but now the only way is to know the phrase.

Well since "Satoshi Nakamoto" has 1 million of does 5 million BTC you would have to ask him. That is, if he has kept the 20 thousand privatekeys to the 1 million BTC ?

That is not possible. Those Bitcoins will be lost forever and will never be moved unless those users have a miracle and get access again with their wallets. When you say compensation for those lost BTC, do you mean they will get a replacement or the missing Bitcoins will be added again to the circulating supply?

Lost bitcoins can be recovered if someone finds the address's private key, is hard to find those keys, but is possible that someone will do so in the future. But is important to remember Satoshi's words about this topic:

Lost coins only make everyone else's worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone

So, lost coins isn't bad at all for the network.

Bitcoins are generally considered lost for life if they are lost or a device's system crashes, or if a major Bitcoin investor dies without having any information available, the Bitcoins cannot be recovered for some reason. In this case, those bitcoins that can never be recovered are called inactive wallets without knowing the details about the bitcoin or the bitcoin address.assumed as According to various statistics, a quarter of the total Bitcoin supply from the number of wallets is assumed to be inactive Bitcoin. If these bitcoins become active in the future, they will be added to the total supply, and if they are no longer active, then these bitcoins will be discarded as lost forever.

Only 21 million Bitcoin can ever exist, meaning you cannot print more than 21 million Bitcoin, any BTC lost as result of misplacing your private keys/key phrases can never be recovered, However instead of we to have 21 million Bitcoin total in circulation we would rather have less than that, maybe something around 19-20 million, and furthermore this lost Bitcoin has even helped reduce the number of Bitcoin that should have been in circulation.

as the supply of btc is fixed, there's nothing we can do anymore with the lost btc. just accept the fact that it will not be recovered and come back to its circulation. and i believe, the number is further increasing, as there are holders that are also forgetting or somewhat losing their access to their wallets.

the reduction of its number will further aid in the market price increase considering the supply and demand concept. if the demand will increase and with fixed supply, definitely we are heading to the positive direction of this market.

I understand that compensating for lost BTC may seem like an attractive idea, especially considering potential losses. However, personally, I fear that adding additional coins into circulation to compensate for lost BTC could lead to inflation and undermine trust in the currency. Such intervention could also undermine the core principles and uniqueness of BTC as a limited and decentralized asset.

There are these situations, situations of a lost Bitcoin but, what you ought to realize is that,
These Bitcoins are not really lost, No, they are not. They still exists within the system, on the Bitcoin blockchain.

What is lost is simply the private key or the seed phrase which provides you access to sign and legitimate a transaction by transferring value while, mitigating double spending.

Having to create any other form for Bitcoin wouldn’t be Bitcoin. It would be a fork and that would be some Bitcoin derived or even pegged coin and never Bitcoin. This wouldn’t be healthy for the Bitcoin ecosystem and there isn’t much need for that.
What would be the case if some of those keys to the supposedly lost Bitcoins are retrieved later in time? It’s chaos for sure.

Lost Bitcoins are motivated for by price rise. It creates scarcity and this is reflected in the price which increases the value of the sats and based on how much value it’s able to accord itself, it would be able to serve the populace that use’s it.

This is the fate of someone negligent in not keeping his seed phrases or private key well in a safe place. If he loses his hardware wallet, he can recover his assets if he has kept his security seed phrases. However, the problem lies in losing access to the seed phrases. This is the most important thing that anyone should give attention to, help secure it and make sure that it can be accessed even after years have passed. The amount of Bitcoin stuck in wallets whose owners have lost access to them is coins that will remain stuck in the wallets for years. There is no way to recover these Bitcoin amounts, and it is not logical to compensate those who have lost their wallets and the Bitcoin amounts they hold. These are the consequences of their mistakes; no one else should pay the price for them.

Indeed, I would feel very sad if I were exposed to what they were exposed to because the amount of Bitcoin that perhaps didn't seem significant at the time when it was in their possession might have significant value now. Still, perhaps their mistakes will be a great lesson for others, so every person must not lose access to his wallet because it will forever lead to the loss of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin that is lost may be seen using a bitcoin explorer but it cannot be accessed anymore like the btc wallet that is used is no longer accessible like forgotten the password of their wallet.dat or lost his/her recovery phrase of the wallet that's why it is lost forever. It still exist although as I explained that it wasn't accessible. We know that bitcoin have 21 million BTC and it's that's fixed but the total of bitcoin that can be used is not the same in the future because some of the bitcoin is lost forever for some reason like losing wallet or the wallet owner died without giving the wallet information to someone in his/her family when that person die.

Don't expect any compensation from what you called lost BTC since no one could ever touched those balances unless the owner of that wallet found there private key and open it back again. If located owners would decide to dump all of that 5 million BTC expect that there will be a dump to happen since imagine how huge that volume to dump by those people so for sure that it create a fud which can contribute other people decision to sell out there coins since they get afraid for worse situation that might happen.

Also much better you should not pay attention with those things and try to pay attention on other things since I believe its more worthy if you focus your attention on some things that can give you benefits in long run.

How do you even verify the amount of bitcoins that have been lost? It is only a guesstimate at best.

It is impossible for anyone to know the total amount of bitcoin that has been lost. Even if this figure was somehow known it is impossible to add any lost coins back to the network.

If that were to ever happen the price of bitcoin would drop to zero.

Well, I guess if you had money that was somehow locked away permanently, with no way to access it ever again, there'd be no way to definitively prove the money was yours. Even if you knew deep down that you earned or owned that money at some point, with no private keys as the rightful owner you'd have no evidence to back up your claim over it.

So, in that kind of situation, how could you conclusively prove the money doesn't actually belong to someone else instead? If you can't verify your own ownership of it, the door is open for another party to potentially step in and argue it's their money that got locked away. And, if it is someone else's, then it is not lost.

In digital life, we can use PGP key and message to prove ownership.
In Bitcoin, we can only use Bitcoin private key to sign a message from a known public address to prove ownership.

Because those guys lost their bitcoins, it's impossible for them to access private keys for those bitcoins. No tool to sign a message to prove ownership.

Even if someone can sign a message, it might be not enough to prove ownership because private keys, mnemonic seeds can be lost, stolen, sold. It is a first step to prove ownership but to prove identity, it needs more evidence.

First we need to understand what is meant by losing bitcoin. In real world, losing fiat means losing ownership of the paper currency (like dropping it somewhere unintentionally, stolen etc). Losing bitcoin means you lose method to access your coins like losing private key or seed. This is biggest dilemma of Bitcoin i.e. once you lose the access its gone forever and this is something not possible in real world financial system.
AFAIK, in Bitcoins who ever owns the key owns the coin. There is no concept of identities in Bitcoin since its pseudonym. To prove the ownership you need the private key. (Correct me if I am wrong) 

Your phrases keys are equivalent to your traditional banking demanded signature, so, there is absolutely no way to have access to it if you can't key in the right keywords for identifications or proofs.
However, if you can get an access proof then you absolutely don't need even a dividend but having all of your Bitcoins to your courts but you you can't make the demanded access proof then you absolutely can't get a dime out of it because you have no evidence of accessible proof.

So, there is no compensations for anyone who looses their phrase keys because no one is second in-charge tongue privacies and no one else to be held responsible for it.

Lost BTC are lost forever unless they are found by getting access to where they were stored. I do not think they will be able to recover those coins.

Who will compensate them? Do you know of any BTC reserve from where they can be compensated? Assuming there is any planned compensation, do you know those who lost their coins. What will happen to those who lost their coins through mistake of wallets? I do not see any point in compensating those who lost their coin because I don't think anyone will send them their mined Bitcoin.

   Bitcoin creator has Satoshi has made it clearer from the beginning that passwords and private keys should be kept properly because Bitcoin has no where to store , provide and retrieve passwords and so the ironkey allow users to guess upto ten times before permanently removing it's content.

   This means that if your Bitcoin wallet is lost it's gone forever can't be retrieved which makes it not accessible and the lost Bitcoin will stay in the block chain and nobody can use it.

“Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone”
~ Satoshi Nakamoto

/thread

Once lost, it’s as good as lost forever, unless if you recover your password or seed phrases, you will retrieve your stored bitcoins. However, asking for a compensation from the market will never be possible. You are the only one responsible of your investment, if you are not wary and is not cautious, you will definitely lost track of your bitcoin hodlings. So as much as possible, if you are not yet capable to safely store some bitcoin, then never do the risk, otherwise our funds and time will only only go into waste.

+1  :)
This is the first thing I remember when I saw this thread.
It just happened you quoted it first :D

This statement from Satoshi Nakamoto before is a simple yet straightforward explanation for the one what OP stated. If you really think and analyze it is indeed correct and applies.

It is not possible to add more supply for Bitcoin. It's a fixed supply and the last Bitcoin will be mined after a century and more.

If you think adding more, it's going to bring chaos. But if it's about the lost Bitcoins, they're making your and mine bitcoins rarer and that adds more value to it.

This!

That's a great donation. I wonder if he's dead or just really doesn't want to use his Bitcoin. I guess we'll never find out.

Assuming this idea of yours is agreed to be taken into consideration how do we know the rightful owners of each respective lost bitcoin since they can't even prove the ownership to it with their seed phrase lost, and mind you it's only through the seed phrase that makes you an owner of a coin/wallet which without you can't spend the coins in the wallet. That's why your idea can be possible.

What you are proposing goes against bitcoin itself. Satoshi knew since the beginning that a good portion of bitcoins would have gone lost forever, and he was fine with that, so why should you worry? I am extremely against adding you bitcoin because that would mean giving space to many other changes in the future, and bitcoin would lose what made it special.

Satoshi only posted his opinion on lost bitcoin.

He only can guess that there will be people who explore bitcoin by curiosity but don't back up wallets and later they will lose bitcoins. Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't have issue with people who lost bitcoins because it is not Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoins. He and we can not control assets owned by others so it is not our problems to feel headache.

If they lost bitcoins, but we don't lose our bitcoins, we can celebrate it because lost bitcoins make accessible bitcoins more valuable by decreasing circulating supply of Bitcoin.

This is a commendable idea because it would make those who lost their BTC really happy BUT it would certainly create only chaos in the whole Bitcoin network and market. Now, maybe in extension with your idea there can be another coin that would instead be used as compensation for those lost Bitcoin but then again the question of distribution can be a big problem. So better us stick to what has happened...lost Bitcoin are forever lost there is no way to recover them and that is why there is a big reminder to holders to make sure all safeguards are in placed...just like the fiat money once you lost them then most probably you lost them for good.

That's exactly what I said. If there's a miracle that they happen to have access again with their wallets, or simply find the private key on it, they can recover their lost Bitcoin. If not, there is no chance for him to recover it. Even if he try multiple combination of private keys, nothing will happen.

Bitcoin system does not work like that, it is either you keep your coin very well and have access to it in your wallet(s) or you lose it forever. However, that's if you are using the self-custody arrangements. But if you are using the custodial arrangement, you may have no issues, you can reset certain passcodes, or contact their support for guidance on how to retrieve your coin. The choice is ours in either case.

Also, unless Satoshi is not a man of his word, no one will revisit anything when it comes to the capped 21 million market supply. This is one of what makes Bitcoin unique and not the lost coins can change this. Bitcoin is a different blockchain mechanism that is so different from other cryptocurrencies, but the moment they start altering it for whatever reason, the worse it will become.

If someone can't recover his private key or hardware wallet, he has no chance to recover his bitcoins.because the security of Bitcoin depends entirely on the security phrase.so not your key not your bitcoin. So you must take care of Bitcoin and for that you take care of private key. Otherwise you will lose your bitcoins forever. so people who lose bitcoins will never get those bitcoins back if they can't recover the private key.

That can't happen because the supply of Bitcoin cannot be altered, you can't increase or reduce the total supply of Bitcoin, and the coins that are lost are lost forever, they will always be a part of the total supply of Bitcoin which is 21 Million, but they will never be a part of the circulating supply because they are idle and will remain so forever, until or unless someone manages to recover the wallets containing those coins which is nearly impossible, especially for some wallets that we don't even know the public address of.

So, what you are suggesting or asking about is not possible. Some people might say that what if satoshi himself reappears and makes such changes in the chain? However, I don't think he would do that even if he is around and watching everything, he can't ruin the fun by tweaking the ecosystem.

Our private key is the most important thing about our non constodial Bitcoin wallets, before you send bitcoin to your receiving address you should make sure we have saved our private key or seed phrase in a safe location that isn't connected to the internet and offline so that hackers can't hack the server used in storing our private key and gaining access to our Bitcoin wallet. When Bitcoin are lost, they're lost forever unless we know the owner of the address that we sent out the Bitcoin to or there's a message included when mining or sending the Bitcoin. The lost Bitcoin are lost forever and taken out of the circulating supply of bitcoin therefore Bitcoin price keep adding value everytime because there is less amount of Bitcoin whenever Bitcoin are being lost due to sending them to a wrong address or address of users that are no longer active because of death or other reasons.

Yeah I just see that these top companies are trying everything to spoil the original plan to somehow benefit themselves, if those lost coins were to be added back in anyway these companies would either buy up half of it to increase their holdings and that would too off the balance of the supply and demand especially now that we are in the bull run.

And what if those lost seed phrase were recovered on any way then we would have a real issue with the total bitcoin in circulation.

In this case, what you said is absolutely correct, apart from that, the phenomenon of Bitcoin disappearing also greatly contributes to the increase in the value of Bitcoin as a whole. those that have been lost due to negligent users will be out of circulation forever, this is because there is no additional supply, only 21 million and that creates an automatic decrease in the number of circulation. The more demand, the faster the price rises and this is very common to know. this is why investors come and buy as much BTC as possible and  BTC has great potential and increases over time.

Some or lost forever.
I personally have btc that are lost forever because 2 phones died (in 2014 and 2015) with some btc in a wallet. I didn't bother because it was just some $ back then, which would be some thousand now.
At that time I also didn't really have clue about all the stuff with seed phrases and so on. I was a btc virgin so to speak.

These btc will never be recovered because the wallet is lost in nowhere.

It was possible to repair the phones or restore access to their memory, right?

Several bitcoin (parts) were lost on one wallet, several on another. As a result, it turns out that an impressive amount was lost from the total turnover of bitcoins. And the number of people who want to own BTC is only growing.

You'll remember this in 10 years and bother because those couple of $ bucks will be worth tens or even hundreds of thousands. :)

It is with seed phrases and the problem of safety of this that need to begin interaction with cryptocurrencies.

What is now lost forever may no longer be impossible in the future (recovery).

Also, how do you know that thesoftware  developer of that wallet didn’t leave a loophole for himself?

why do you think about bitcoins that are already lost? i mean it wasn't yours in the first place, why would you want the developer to compensate 5 million bitcoins as a replacement for those lost bitcoins, that's just unreasonable. moreover, bitcoin was designed from the start to only have a supply of 21 million and that will not increase at any time in the future. because just imagine the impact that would be caused if bitcoin developers added 5 million new coins, that means the supply on the market would increase and possibly reduce the price of bitcoin. so the limited bitcoin supply as it is now is the right thing and no longer needs to be disturbed.

Therefore, we must really maintain access to the wallet that we have, we must maintain it well and don't let the wallet that we use to store Bitcoin disappear and we can no longer have access to the wallet. This is really a very fatal mistake because we won't be able to. Having access to this wallet again, those who are very confident about the price of Bitcoin will certainly continue to collect Bitcoin for the future and their needs.

we don't need to be afraid of people who lost their Bitcoin because I know quite well now whatever thing you do you must loss something else, understand that losing your Bitcoin is something that can happen to anyone and it happens when you have not be secured your seed phrase very well, so I believe that we have to learn how to secure our seed phrase because its something that has to do with security and when you fail to protect your seed phrase you will lose your bitcoin, that is why they said we should be conscious of our seed phrase so that we will not lose our coins or complain for sudden disappearance of coins in our wallet

Who would really be the ones be giving out that compensation?
Adding up more BTC in equivalent on what we do have lost? It cant be just possible. Supply is totally fixed and there's no way that there would really be some add up.
Why would really be that bothered on adding up on which people could eventually be able to buy up in fractions? It isnt really that necessary for someone to have that whole coin
for them to be considered to be a holder or someone do have that kind of title or whatever that they do have in mind.

We do have those tons of lost coins in void and there's no way on getting back. If you are someone included into those who have lost their precious coins
then there's no way that you could really be able to take it back. Just simply move on and go for further worthy actions that you would really be
needing to make so that you would really be able to at least making some profits into other method.

When we invest in bitcoin not only that we will profit by investing in bitcoin of course we can lose money by investing in bitcoin risky but we have to be patient and know enough about investing in bitcoin knowing that if we can invest in bitcoin then surely we will be proper success. But before investing in Bitcoin, if we are afraid that we will face loss if we invest in Bitcoin, then we can never invest in Bitcoin with this attitude. We can lose money as we can gain in Bitcoin. So we also worry about losses. We have to invest by doing that if we invest patiently we will surely get some good from Bitcoin. Of course, we have to have a long term plan in Bitcoin investment. Investments cannot be too hasty. If we have a long term plan, it is definitely very positive in Bitcoin investment.

del

Compensation for their carelessness or what? Most people who lost their Bitcoin were as a result of their mistakes not that there a natural disaster or something that made them lose those coins different from their own fault. I think records has it that most of those incidence occurred when Bitcoin was not worth anything so they never believed Bitcoin could be anything of value else they would have protected their assets with everything within their powers. If there will be compensation to them, who will pay the compensation and from which treasury? Their Bitcoin is lost and lost forever so that others can learn to be more careful with their assets.

del

You can't ask for compensation from your government if you lose a fiat bank note. If your lost bank note is somehow destroyed, the government even can't reissue that bank note. So how do you expect compensation from a decentralised currency? There is no way to reissue. If you lose Bitcoin, then that will be considered a community donation. Because lost Bitcoin reduces circulation from the total circulation supply, It means increasing the demand, though it is very small. I wish no one lost their bitcoin, because it's irreversible anyway. 

Compensation from a blockchained-cryptocurrency is very bad idea. It is rolling back a blockchain to any block that contains hacked money related transactions, it will cause of lot of chaos on that blockchain. By rolling back, it makes nothing is solid on the blockchain and dust can not settle down and you can lose your money even days after you received it.

There is such thing with bank transfers, Paypal if you file a report with enough evidence to banks, police, Paypal and that transaction can be charged back. Transactions through stable coins can be affected by stable coin companies but they are not better than Bitcoin blockchain.

Secure your wallet, backup and double check details before you finalize your transaction broadcast. When that transaction has one confirmation, you are done and safe.

PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5204055.0)

We really have to be careful in looking after our bitcoins, because losing them means we won't be able to find them again, so by donating to the community the supply of bitcoins will decrease in the field, and that means they will become increasingly scarce, so if demand increases this will increase the price of bitcoins. continues to increase, of course it will be a blessing for other bitcoin investors

Even if the bitcoin community wanted this, it's absolutely not possible to do, without a fork, bitcoin code is designed in a way that there is no way to mint more bitcoins, like it is with some shitcoins, what ever amount of bitcoin that is lost is lost forever unfortunately, there is no way to recover them, or compensate those who lost it.

If the supply of bitcoin was to be increased so as to replace the lost bitcoin, this can only happen through a bitcoin fork, and like you know, we've had a lot of forks in the past, all those bitcoin forks have turned shitcoins today, bitcoin it self still stand as the original and only true bitcoin.

Of course, that will not happen, the Bitcoins lost due to losing the private key will be lost forever. There is no compensation for that Bitcoin, because from the beginning Bitcoin was created in such a certain quantity and no one, not even Satoshi, can fix it. Because of this, Bitcoin has value, and the actual number of Bitcoins that can circulate on the market will be much lower than 21 million. This is an advantage for those who are holding Bitcoin, because I believe the price of Bitcoin will grow many times more than its current price.

You're losing bitcoins means you've lost your bitcoin wallet. so if you can't recover that wallet, those bitcoins will be completely lost, it's impossible for anyone to recover it. and what miners can't recover by mining it somehow.  So the hope of lost bitcoins should be abandoned. Such is the concept of Bitcoin. This is how Bitcoin's algorithm works and no one can break this algorithm

Bitcoin is open source and managed by the community, so I think that if there is consensus from developers, miners... then printing more bitcoins is possible. I think we can theoretically change the supply of bitcoin but doing so is very difficult and almost impossible. If someone makes a proposal about it, it will definitely cause fierce debate in the community, it is no different from an impossible task. If I remember correctly, we also had a discussion thread about this issue right on our forum.

It is possible but the community don't want it. They know that part of Bitcoin value is contributed by its limited supply, 21 million bitcoins.

They are smart enough to know that if in history, Bitcoin total supply can be voted by Bitcoin nodes, community members to increase its total supply, there will be more events like this to increase Bitcoin total supply many more times. Then, belief in Bitcoin and its fixed total supply will be broken.

This idea is only from people who don't have bitcoin and hesitate to buy bitcoins. They want to have more bitcoins in total supply to have cheaper price to buy. They are for their benefits, not for benefit of the whole community. They also miss a point that if Bitcoin total supply can be increased, they will not get benefit in a long term too.

How is the 21 million Bitcoin cap defined and enforced? (https://blog.lopp.net/how-is-the-21-million-bitcoin-cap-defined-and-enforced/)
Can Bitcoin's Hard Cap of 21 Million Be Changed? (https://river.com/learn/can-bitcoins-hard-cap-of-21-million-be-changed/)

Increasing the bitcoin supply is a terrible idea and I do not expect it to be proposed and passed under any circumstances. Although supply is not the only factor that makes bitcoin as valuable as it is today, and many people are also focusing too much on bitcoin's supply, because if bitcoin does not have any outstanding utility, then that supply is worthless. But we should not arbitrarily change or increase supply because if you change it once, it will happen next time. This will reduce the reputation of bitcoin thereby reducing the value it achieves.

For people who are Bitcoiners and already joined Bitcoin community, it does not make sense to increase total supply.

For outsiders, who dislike Bitcoin or hesitated to join Bitcoin community, they want to see total supply increase with some reasons. One can be their hope to see cheaper price for 1 BTC to enter. Another reason is simply because they dislike Bitcoin and want to see its price to fall.

So as insiders, we have no reason to satisfy outsiders because of their benefits or just because they want to destroy Bitcoin value and price.

there is a office mate of mine that have had this experience when he was being paid
of 10 bitcoin back in those days but he did not pay attention or give importance because
those days the value is just a couple of dollars,not until 2017 when he have heard in news
about the increasing value of bitcoin and yeah regret everything.


nope there are no chance of adding more btc in the circulation not unless Satoshi
will return and  have some act on this.

No, there is no way it can be fulfilled. Because your bitcoin is lost if you can recover then definitely try it. But it will never be possible for someone else to compensate you for this

If such a compensation system were in place, the value of Bitcoin would be much lower. Bitcoins have the highest value because lost bitcoins are not recovered.

Bitcoin whitepaper purists should take note that the following things are NOT described in the whitepaper:

multisig
mining pools
21M coin cap
GPU & ASIC mining
10 minute block times
HD address generation
best chain = cumulative PoW, not longest chain
and much, much more...

Source & Click here: https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1023689161096785920?t=vTuu_ZedJIdymoFYCfr4UQ&s=19

Bitcoin model is the model of scarcity. If bitcoin is abundantly available for everyone, it will definitely lose its value. Even satoshi nakamato in the white pepper addressed this issue by saying that the lost bitcoins are advantage to the Bitcoin network because it increases it scarcity status. In his words, he is of the opinion that lost bitcoins should be regarded as bitcoin sent to everyone's addresses  ;D
The bitcoin developers should and will not try to touch the 21 million fixed supply because that is the key to bitcoin success.

I don't think these suggestions come from outsiders because they are not related to bitcoin, there is no reason for them to care about it. I think this idea comes from greedy people in the market. Just like the ideas of BRC20 once created a wave of fierce opposition from the bitcoin maximization community, but in the end it still happened for the benefit of the group behind it. I think sooner or later someone will propose increasing the bitcoin supply, but let's hope it never gets passed and becomes a reality.

Yes that's right. lost bitcoins there is no compensation for those Bitcoins because the final supply of bitcoins will not increase. Whether you admit it or not, a lot of bitcoins were lost, especially in the early days of Bitcoin, so many people didn't realize that the value of bitcoin would be what it is today, so many of them forgot. Seed Phrases, theft, and transaction errors.

This is just an assumption as an example, if 5 million bitcoins can never be recovered again, then that would lower the maximum limit from 21 million to 16 million. So it is true as you said that the price of bitcoin will increase many times because the number of bitcoins is increasingly limited.

Are we too focused on bitcoin supply? If we think that the more bitcoins we lose and the less the supply, the more the price will rise, then should we pray for more bitcoins to be lost?

Personally, I don't care too much about the supply, what I care about more is the convenience, features of bitcoin more than anything. Because creating an asset with limited supply is not that difficult, and with an asset with limited supply but no use case, how can it increase in price? Look at ETH, it has an infinite supply but its value is not low.

Correction, the maximum supply of Bitcoin will not decrease from 21 million to 16 million just because there are 5 million Bitcoins that was considered lost forever or that can never be recovered. Those 5 million Bitcoins will only be treated as less amount in the total circulating supply. The total supply will remain at 21 million and will not decrease due to the lost Bitcoins.

Yes, the bitcoin supply would not change even if more bitcoins were lost, but those bitcoins that are lost and have no way to get them back, that would also leave the circulating supply of bitcoins 21 million bitcoins lower. So, there is nothing wrong if people think that the bitcoin supply is lower than 21 million bitcoins. What we need to care about is the amount of supply circulating in the market, not the total amount of supply, and the less supply circulating, the more value will increase.

I believe the OP did not know the mechanism of operation of Bitcoin, that is the only reason why he can be asking that question. If the structure and the operating system are left as it is now and based on the initial plans, then nothing can be done as the OP wanted and your advice will be so correct in that regard. Well, all hope is not lost yet, we can only say that we can talk with the present mode of operation, but later in the future if Satoshi shows up again, maybe there can be some upgrades, addition and subtraction and unbelievable things that people did not believe is possible and also which people are clamouring now but for unheard.

Bitcoin is a project like never before and Satoshi had his plan though the plans are now known to be very faulty, and that is why projects like Ethereum are getting more relevance if not for the pioneer status of Bitcoin that is helping it. For now, we should enjoy it while it lasts and the Bitcoin you lost is lost forever since it is a decentralised system. No way such can be recovered, not even with Satoshi's intervention in this current Bitcoin system since it is an open-source, nothing is hidden.

The more Bitcoin are being lost the more the supply of Bitcoin is reducing, it won't reflect officially on the total supply of Bitcoin that is 21 millions but we can't have 21 million Bitcoin trading in the market because some of them will be lost by early users and future users and there are some individuals that'll die without anybody being available to claim their Bitcoin as they didn't tell anybody about their investment in Bitcoin because of security reasons. The lost Bitcoin are lost forever and will never be recovered. The price of Bitcoin will always increase because halving reduced the reward for miners and it reduced the supply of Bitcoin being introduced into the market. The lost Bitcoin also helps to make the Bitcoin will hodl to be valuable and this is why we have to keep holding the Bitcoin we own.

This is technically true. Well according to price history f bitcoin, for every halving marker the price of Bitcoin creates a new floor price and makes the price higher. Talking about the lost BTCs, it wasn't proven yet that it was truly lost. It just happened that there is about 5 million BTCs that are not flowing. Which means it is not being transferred or circulated in the market. If the lost wallets and BTCs are proven to be right, then I would take that as a bullish sentiment because it just really decreases the limited amount of BTC to 16mil.

Lost Bitcoin means that Bitcoin is lost forever and that Bitcoin can never be recovered. Bitcoins from Bitcoin wallets that have been inactive for a long time and have not yet been accessed and the owner is unknown will be considered as lost Bitcoins forever.
These lost bitcoins will never replace the total supply (21 million bitcoins) but rather the lost bitcoins will be removed from the circulating supply of bitcoins. Again if the lost bitcoin owner becomes active then the active bitcoins will be added to the circulating supply.

Lost coins are overall good for the market because the maximum supply is much lower and with lower supply and ever increasing demand it will eventually create this artificial scarcity that would raise the price of whatever is on demand which in this case is bitcoin, now that's the perspective of the whole market excluding the person that has lost those bitcoins. I don't even think chaos would even ensue, there's no way that you have been in this market for a long time and you still don't see how chaotic the market is? Bitcoin is a volatile asset that could just dump overnight without any reason or pump for the same thing, that's already chaos OP, no way that bitcoin could get more chaotic than that if you ask me.

This is one of the disadvantages of decentralization, if Bitcoin had a central office or authority that someone who lost their BTC can report to, then we won't have these issues of it being lost forever. I don't think that it'll be possible to add more Bitcoin to it's total supply because it'll cause more chaos like you said than any good, it was created to have a limited supply and it should remain so. Finally if password is forgotten and seed phrase is lost, then there's no hope of recovering the BTC, I've had the painful experience and it's not something to wish on anyone. To avoid being a victim of lost Bitcoin forever, it's best to take extra care and hide your seed phrase in different secured locations.

Pretty early on I had a hard drive crash and took with it my Bitcoin wallet.  I had my private keys backed up of course but I still had some learning to do about change addresses.  I still have no idea how much BTC is sitting in that wallet in change addresses that I was unable to recover and I also am aware of an address that had at least 0.4 BTC on it that wasn't backed up at the time of the crash, so at the very least I have a dead hard drive with 0.4 BTC on it.  Maybe someday it will be enough to have someone try and recover it and maybe they'll find me a lost stash of who knows how much BTC in change addresses.  I'm certain there's some and possibly as much as 50 BTC, but I don't trust any technician enough to hand over my hard drive and compromise my keys.  Someday...

When the price of Bitcoin was very low and in other words when it was almost worthless, those who didn't care about the Bitcoin wallet lost the seed phrase of the wallet without any recovery, so assume that those of you who lost it will never recover from that wallet. Can't and if it can be recovered then it will instantly become a billionaire/ trillionaire. Moreover, if more bitcoins are added to the total bitcoin supply, it will be declared as a bitcoin scam. They will not receive any compensation for losing BTC.

Humans are very emotional and human emotions are always most focused on the present which is why you will focus on what is most profitable for you in the present. In the same way people mined bitcoins or bought bitcoins for fun in 2009-10 but they couldn't have predicted that it would be so valuable in the future. And that's why they didn't take care of their wallet keys and they lost their bitcoins. And those who don't have a wallet have no chance to access the bitcoins.  Those bitcoins are now Velunes. they can only be viewed but not used or enjoyed