What happens to "lost" bitcoins?

[KleinMatthias]

I just read this story (a guy disposed of a hard drive holding 7500 btc):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25146685

What happens to those bitcoins now? Is there any way for him to retrieve them? Let's say he can find the address in the blockchain somehow - can he do anything to get his money back?

[manoamano]

They are not lost.
They are still there.


But no one can (for the moment) use them.
They will just stay there, or if someone finds the private key, he will be able to spend them.


Otherwise, nothing will happen. People use to say that the value of other coin increase a little

[bitcoin44me]

Lost coins will not appear again and be created in the future.

[Gator-hex]

Is there any way for him to retrieve them?

Yeah if he remembers where he stored a backup of his wallet.dat 

[bitcoin44me]

Is there any way for him to retrieve them?

Yeah if he remembers where he stored a backup of his wallet.dat 

His hard drive is compromised.
He will not retrieve the wallet.dat file.

And even if you know the public key, it will not be useful at all

[VampireKid]

So this makes it that there are 7500 BTC less to trade and makes bitcoin "more rare". and that means higher prices.

I like these kind of stories but it also makes me sad that there are some coins out there lost and never to be found again in the darkness off the harddrive.

[bitcoin44me]

So this makes it that there are 7500 BTC less to trade and makes bitcoin "more rare". and that means higher prices.

I like these kind of stories but it also makes me sad that there are some coins out there lost and never to be found again in the darkness off the harddrive.

I think that the guy who had the hard drive is really mad now yes

[gooryheta]

I just read this story (a guy disposed of a hard drive holding 7500 btc):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25146685

What happens to those bitcoins now? Is there any way for him to retrieve them? Let's say he can find the address in the blockchain somehow - can he do anything to get his money back?

A man from from Newport says he has lost a £4.6 million fortune after throwing out a computer hard drive which stored a digital wallet holding 7,500 bitcoins, a virtual form of currency for use online.

Maybe someone else has the HDD now... so all depends.

But the story is so vague I doubt it happened, looks just like $1,000 / BTC propagation

[bitcoin44me]

As I understood the story, the hard drive is not accessible to anyone now

[J35st3r]

Some scenarios have our descendents mining landfill dumps for metals and other resources (hell, they do it right now in some less developed countries), so perhaps they'll be keeping a special look out for hard drives and other computer equipment.

Bitcoin mining, the term comes full circle! 

[immortal4now]

Some scenarios have our descendents mining landfill dumps for metals and other resources (hell, they do it right now in some less developed countries), so perhaps they'll be keeping a special look out for hard drives and other computer equipment.

Bitcoin mining, the term comes full circle! 

Recovering data from second hand HDDs is good way to get secret informations anyway, the only trouble might be encrypted wallets with strong passphrase...

[ahasver]

    Are we preserved from inflation when acquiring bitcoins? Wouldnt lost of bitcoins by other people cause it?

[IlMao]

They are not lost.
They are still there.

Actually they *are* lost. If you lose your private key, nobody else will be able to spend them anymore.
So, their value will go in the still existing bitcoins.
The fact is that it is hard to distinguish between a "lost" bitcoin and a simply "held" one. You can just do it statistically.

[jeexlus]

I just read this story (a guy disposed of a hard drive holding 7500 btc):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25146685

What happens to those bitcoins now? Is there any way for him to retrieve them? Let's say he can find the address in the blockchain somehow - can he do anything to get his money back?

no way unless the owner remember where he saved

[ZeWaren]

Losing your bicoin is like storing a bag of gold somewhere in the world and then forgetting where it is exactly. You might remember parts of the location, but as long as you don't have it exactly, you can't touch them again.

[Light]

Actually they *are* lost. If you lose your private key, nobody else will be able to spend them anymore.
So, their value will go in the still existing bitcoins.
The fact is that it is hard to distinguish between a "lost" bitcoin and a simply "held" one. You can just do it statistically.

That's not entirely true. Technically you could brute-force the private key and thus gain access to the wallet, but it is highly dependent on luck and the timeframe for actually getting the private key is large enough to be unviable and it is far more profitable to mine with that processing power than try to brute force a private key. But then again, knowing how computer technology advances it may be possible in the future at some point.

[Puxery]

I just read this story (a guy disposed of a hard drive holding 7500 btc):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25146685

What happens to those bitcoins now? Is there any way for him to retrieve them? Let's say he can find the address in the blockchain somehow - can he do anything to get his money back?

may be gorverment will take it

[IlMao]

Actually they *are* lost. If you lose your private key, nobody else will be able to spend them anymore.
So, their value will go in the still existing bitcoins.
The fact is that it is hard to distinguish between a "lost" bitcoin and a simply "held" one. You can just do it statistically.

That's not entirely true. Technically you could brute-force the private key and thus gain access to the wallet, but it is highly dependent on luck and the timeframe for actually getting the private key is large enough to be unviable and it is far more profitable to mine with that processing power than try to brute force a private key. But then again, knowing how computer technology advances it may be possible in the future at some point.

If you were right, the entire bitcoin (and crypto changes in general) will be dead! In any case, you don't need to lose your wallet to permit to brute-force your private key. But, if this would be feasible, I've some interesting address to hack... This one, for example, seems interesting, just while I'm writing... http://blockchain.info/it/address/16TzpBN7bib3sKdvFgfRuduwcTy88KqJMk

[Doth]

gone furever.

[Domaba]

I just read this story (a guy disposed of a hard drive holding 7500 btc):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25146685

What happens to those bitcoins now? Is there any way for him to retrieve them? Let's say he can find the address in the blockchain somehow - can he do anything to get his money back?

they are still there but just cant be moved any more