21 million not never !!!

[saturn643]

how many of currently mined bitcoins are lost forever?

[Megabyte]

Read an article once, author claimed up to 30% coins are lost forever.

[Inotanewbie]

Read an article once, author claimed up to 30% coins are lost forever.

I wouldn't go that much or believe that article like most of them, but there is definitely quite a lot of coins missing/lost would you count satoshi's million+ as lost as they have never been touched for years? I am guessing anywhere from 10-15% but who knows and in the future there will obviously be a hole lot more being lost which is good for everyone else who doesn't lose them i guess them, smaller supply higher value.  

[notlist3d]

Read an article once, author claimed up to 30% coins are lost forever.

I wouldn't go that much or believe that article like most of them, but there is definitely quite a lot of coins missing/lost would you count satoshi's million+ as lost as they have never been touched for years? I am guessing anywhere from 10-15% but who knows and in the future there will obviously be a hole lot more being lost which is good for everyone else who doesn't lose them i guess them, smaller supply higher value.  

I think it would be hard to find amount.   You might be able to find BTC adress with no activity, but part I don't see is how you could tell cold storage holding (with no one depositing more) compared to a lost account.

I do think it is not something that will repeat its self.   I would guess most lost were CPU and GPU days.  But that is just my feeling as price was lot lower then.

[b!z]

This person compiled a list of all "dormant" bitcoin addresses, those that have not been used to send any transactions "since the price of bitcoin was less than $10 apiece; so around January 31, 2013".

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2twrs7/all_42400_dormant_bitcoin_addresses_with_a/

There's an address holding over 79,000 coins here: https://blockchain.info/address/1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF

And one with 28,150 here: https://blockchain.info/address/12tkqA9xSoowkzoERHMWNKsTey55YEBqkv

It makes you wonder what the stories behind the addresses are. Do the creators of these inactive addresses still have the private keys? Or did they lose them through some stroke of bad luck?

[hilariousetc]

There's no way to tell but it doesn't really matter how many are in circulation but 21 mill is the number that will be mined. I don't think just because they haven't moved means they are lost though as some people will just keep them safe and hold for the long run (though also some coins will naturally be lost or forgotten about too).

[b!z]

There's no way to tell but it doesn't really matter how many are in circulation but 21 mill is the number that will be mined. I don't think just because they haven't moved means they are lost though as some people will just keep them safe and hold for the long run (though also some coins will naturally be lost or forgotten about too).

This study finds that older addresses are more likely to become inactive.

http://www.coinbuzz.com/2015/03/05/paper-suggests-bitcoin-miners-lose-money/

It cites one reason being that bitcoin was worth much less back then as it is today. Therefore, there was less motivation for a person to hold onto his/her coins and take the proper measures to preserve them.

[hilariousetc]

This study finds that older addresses are more likely to become inactive.

Well I think that is logical, but it doesn't mean they're all lost. My first coins haven't moved in years since I bought them and likely won't for a very long time and if you see the potential in bitcoin I think others will feel the same. If satoshi is alive I can't see him just abandoning his coins forever either or would like to think he still has access to them at least.

[qwer312]

This person compiled a list of all "dormant" bitcoin addresses, those that have not been used to send any transactions "since the price of bitcoin was less than $10 apiece; so around January 31, 2013".

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2twrs7/all_42400_dormant_bitcoin_addresses_with_a/

There's an address holding over 79,000 coins here: https://blockchain.info/address/1FeexV6bAHb8ybZjqQMjJrcCrHGW9sb6uF

And one with 28,150 here: https://blockchain.info/address/12tkqA9xSoowkzoERHMWNKsTey55YEBqkv

It makes you wonder what the stories behind the addresses are. Do the creators of these inactive addresses still have the private keys? Or did they lose them through some stroke of bad luck?

huge amount of coins are gone, what will happen if lets say 95% of bitcoin are lost?

[hilariousetc]

Nothing. It would just make the remaining coins even more valuable. More decimal places could be added too if coins were so scarce so smaller denominations weren't worth ridiculous amounts.

[galbros]

This person compiled a list of all "dormant" bitcoin addresses, those that have not been used to send any transactions "since the price of bitcoin was less than $10 apiece; so around January 31, 2013".

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2twrs7/all_42400_dormant_bitcoin_addresses_with_a/

That's a really helpful post, thanks.  His spreadsheet is very handy and shows 3,380,582 bitcoins total in these quiet addresses.  Note that he only considered addresses with 25 or more bitcoins so who knows how much is lost in other addresses.

3,380,582 is about 25% of all existing bitcoins, so that 30% estimate seems legit for today, but not sure going forward, since presumably people will be much more careful of their bitcoin now that it is worth so much more.

[randy8777]

it would make sense for people who bought btc in 2011 and 2012 to at least sell a few coins at $1100 peak.
maybe they just can't access their wallet or they will leave them untouched for like another 10 more years.

[jjacob]

There are at least 2130 BTC which have been lost forever because they have been sent to an address to which nobody has the private key.

https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr

[lucasjkr]

Read an article once, author claimed up to 30% coins are lost forever.

Anyone can claim any amount of coins have been lost; absent coins being burned to a verifiable burn address, there's no way to prove any loss.

Yes, if someone comes along saying they lost 5 BTC, I will fee horrible for them, but even if the sum of coins reported lost by people to things like crashed hard drives, etc was 2 million, in my mind, I wouldn't think that the remaining coins should be any more valuable, because there is no way to prove those coins lost, rather than people trying to manipulate perceived prices.

People come up with all sorts of theories about when to say that coins have been lost; if they haven't moved for X amount of time, presumed lost, etc... That doesn't make sense.

First off, early miners could have simply backed up their wallets and haven't felt the need to combine all of their coins at a new address, and a lot of people claim to have created paper wallets and done things like burying them somewhere. Those coins won't move either. Really, just because a coin hasn't moved from its address for a while, that's no reason to assume its lost. Or, at the least, it would be very unwise for people to try to adjust value of the remaining coins, as those coins "lost" could move at any time. There's no proof the private keys for older coins have been lost, in many cases, no ones even claiming the key has beeen lost, it's just that someone is speculating that the key is lost due to the lack of movement.

[gentlemand]

Just because coins haven't moved for long time means nothing. If you have thousands then there's no need to dip into old reserves.

Quite a few have admitted to early mining then deleting wallets when they felt it was going nowhere. Considering how big the block reward was it's likely a lot are never to be seen again.

Then you have hardware failures too like this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=388169.0  1000 BTC up in smoke just for this guy. There were no paper or hardware wallets back then.

[FinanceUS]

Read an article once, author claimed up to 30% coins are lost forever.

30% seems to be too much.

That means on average everyone who owns 1 BTC would likely to lose 0.3 BTC lol.  

[dothebeats]

Not all inactive addresses doesn't mean that the coins on those are lost forever. Yes--it is true that some addresses have lost privkeys by their owners and won't be recovered (unless someone or something discovered a way to brute-force) anytime sooner. There are far more different scenarios that could have happened, though, but all the 21m coins in circulation probably wouldn't happen if--as you said it--addresses have lost their privkeys and the users don't have the control over them.

[bitcoin_bagholder]

There are at least 2130 BTC which have been lost forever because they have been sent to an address to which nobody has the private key.

https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr

Is there concrete proof that nobody can access those coins?

[freemind1]

That no transactions are made not mean who are lost or "abandoned". Some people do not open their wallets for years, and do not think they will be open until the last Bitcoin be mined.

[notlist3d]

That no transactions are made not mean who are lost or "abandoned". Some people do not open their wallets for years, and do not think they will be open until the last Bitcoin be mined.

This is what I mentioned earlier.  It is just hard to tell the difference between the two as they appear the same.

I do think there i a high chance lots of CPU coins did get "lost" in one way or another.  But it will always be a estimate no way you can tell for sure.