How many Bitcoins are lost forever?

[agusmf]

Almost every time I bring up
Bitcoin to someone new this
question arises.  I think it's an
important topic but difficult to
give a solid answer.

[bitbitch]

Almost every time I bring up
Bitcoin to someone new this
question arises.  I think it's an
important topic but difficult to
give a solid answer.

it's important. it changes the supply side number significantly. however, they are permanently dead coins. of greater importance is the % of live coins held by a small number of people. live coins have the power to move the market. concentrated in the hands of a few they can 'make' the market, and then 'decentalization' is a moot point.

[Kevin77]

It's sad to read that over 2100 btc has already been lost due to people forgetting their private keys and being unable to access their wallets. These coins are definitely a loss as mined coins are limited and with these coins just lying idle in the wallet, even blockchain or another site cannot access them ever.

[Ruzka]

It's sad to read that over 2100 btc has already been lost due to people forgetting their private keys and being unable to access their wallets. These coins are definitely a loss as mined coins are limited and with these coins just lying idle in the wallet, even blockchain or another site cannot access them ever.

I could not be more sure that it is a lot more lost than just 2100btc, where did you get this number?
I myself have lost 3btc due to not being on the ball with my back ups.
All in all. Every coin lost just makes the remaining more valuable so yes it is a loss to the person but not to bitcoin or its holders as it makes the remaining coin that little bit more valuable.

[krunox123]

I don't know if 30% is accurate. No on will know. But I think a better percentage would be somewhere 5-10%.

It is very hard to get an estimate numbers since nobody knows if these coins that is not touched for years is the coin owner intention or not. Perhaps there is less than 30% coins are lost.

[Hugroll]

I don't know if 30% is accurate. No on will know. But I think a better percentage would be somewhere 5-10%.

ya 30% seems definitely too inflated to me. if i had to guess i would say that around 3-5% of bitcoins are in unknown private keys.
but that number can only get bigger from there. its not like people are going to start finding their coins again.

[tyz]

Well, I gambled too much and I lost too much, so I know what I am talking about. The thing is, this thread is not about losing Bitcoin in gambling but losing Bitcoin in comon where you have no access to the private keys anymore

This question is such a difficult question to answer. I only know that whatever i think is a lot less than what has actually been lost. It will always stay as a mystery as we can never be sure of the exact number

I think you often play in gambling, so you do not know. how much did you lose? am i right ?

[Bitcotalk]

Nothing has lost till now, I am collecting bitcoins by earning it on different ways including faucets, signature campaigns and trading and the bitcoin price is now increasing and will increase more and I am earning more and more each day with the rise in price.

[tyz]

I have just stumbled upon an article where someone has lost 150 Bitcoins by upgrading his machine. This is after all an amount of rewards for 12 newly generated Bitcoin blocks.

https://news.bitcoin.com/guy-lost-bitcoin-computer-upgrade/

[bitbunnny]

Is there any method or mechanism that could calculate the exact value or number of lost Bitcoins? I mean every one of us could calculate how much he or she has lost but it would be interesting to see how is average portio between loss and profit among Bitcoin users.
And how many coins are lost somwhere in the system because they don't belong to no one. If they can be lost at all.

[Ya-ing]

Probably a lot were lost at the very beginning, when they had almost no value. Today many satoshis are lost because people lose interest and all. At the beginning it was full btcs instead of satoshi probably.

[requester]

I think lot of bitcoin had been lost till date because I had read article that stated that a person loosed 7000 bitcoin while his hard drive was thrown into garbage and later he realized that bitcoin had got such a high market value. and likewise there might be lot of bitcoin kissed till date and many might have loosed private key our wallet password.

[marleybobthedog]

I think more than half million bitcoin is lost forever because there are many user who had lost private key or could have got bitcoin wallet account blocked due to any reason and also there are many user who had thrown away hard disk and dine had either corrupted their hard disk

[tabas]

Is there any method or mechanism that could calculate the exact value or number of lost Bitcoins? I mean every one of us could calculate how much he or she has lost but it would be interesting to see how is average portio between loss and profit among Bitcoin users.
And how many coins are lost somwhere in the system because they don't belong to no one. If they can be lost at all.

There is none, this issue is very popular and hard to know on how much bitcoin are totally lost forever. Because we can just create as many bitcoin wallets as we can, some people manage to put their bitcoins from different addresses and when they will forget their private key or passwords then the balance on that wallet address will lost forever.

[gufpmvgw3334]

yup.
we won't know how many addresses were dead, there a lot of stories about how some have had a huge amount of BTC in a hard drive they just threw out.

[iqlimasyadiqa]

I have a lot to lose bitcoin. mainly from investment trading. maybe if the calculated can be up to 1.5 BTC. Have I always try to invest bitcoin I have.

[BADecker]

How many bitcoins will lost forever? All of them, as soon as the Internet and the power grid go down.

[dunfida]

Is there any method or mechanism that could calculate the exact value or number of lost Bitcoins? I mean every one of us could calculate how much he or she has lost but it would be interesting to see how is average portio between loss and profit among Bitcoin users.
And how many coins are lost somwhere in the system because they don't belong to no one. If they can be lost at all.

I think  this question would  not   be  answered  accurately because   as you said   no one  could able to calculate and  no  method or mechanism  would  do such thing. No. of bitcoins  are  lost  are actually there   because   we cannot avoid    on some  bad circumstances  that  might happen  to our  bitcoins. Which  causes  that  it would be lost  forever.

[crazyivan]

I think I read somewhere an estimation of up to 2 million being irreversibly lost. This means max 19 million in total should be available to investors/holders/miners.

[chesatochi]

I think I read somewhere an estimation of up to 2 million being irreversibly lost. This means max 19 million in total should be available to investors/holders/miners.

Two millions of bitcoins are lost forever that is a huge amount. The same thing happen in the real world, when someone died or forget about an old bank account.

The money stays there without no one to claim it.