How many Bitcoins are lost forever?

[tyz]

I know it is a tricky question. What do you think, how many Bitcoins are lost forever and are 'out of the network' by lost private keys?

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[digicoinuser]

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.

[gentlemand]

It will be forever an eternal mystery. My only guess is that it's a lot, lot more than many think.

[Amph]

It will be forever an eternal mystery. My only guess is that it's a lot, lot more than many think.

this is a good thing afterall, the more they are the better for the price if everything else remain the same

anyway it was estimated that they were around 3M at least, i don't remember where i saw this now

[PenguinFire]

That is an interesting question but unfortunately there is no way to ever know.  I am sure a lot of people got in at the beginning and became bored of it and just left or forgot about their wallets.  If only they could be recovered and distrubted to all!    That would be sweet!

[BitAddict]

Impossible to know... but when they were nearly worth nothing in the start, lot of them were lost for sure.

[bri912678]

Some have estimated it's 30 per cent of all Bitcoins. It coins haven't moved for years it's unlikely anyone still controls them, except for Satoshi's coins. The figure keeps increasing because of things like burned coins, such as the 2130 Bitcoins burned during the Counterparty distribution.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11362827/The-625m-lost-forever-the-phenomenon-of-disappearing-Bitcoins.html

NVIDIA engineer John Ratcliff calculated in June that “zombie coins”, defined as those which have lay dormant for at least a year and a half, accounted for 30 per cent of all Bitcoins.

[Snorek]

Impossible to know... but when they were nearly worth nothing in the start, lot of them were lost for sure.

Yes, we can't be sure of the exact number of lost bitcoins. But:

1. It is not important.
2. It is actually a good thing that bitcoins are lost.
3. Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.

[NorrisK]

There is a thread around here with confirmed lost coins by people from the forums here. I think it was around 150.000 around here alone.. Someone has the link to the thread?

[Lorenzo]

I know it is a tricky question. What do you think, how many Bitcoins are lost forever and are 'out of the network' by lost private keys?

Here's a thread from 2011-2014 that tried to count all of the bitcoins that were permanently lost (and not just merely stolen):

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253

One example that comes to mind is the Counterparty proof-of-burn which saw 2,130 BTC sent to an unspendable address. Then there's that hard drive containing thousands of BTC that got thrown away as well. Those coins definitely won't be going anywhere anytime soon. But like others here have already said, I don't think we'll ever know exactly how many coins are truly lost.

I'm sure there are also people out there who will claim that their coins are lost when in fact they still have access to them - either because they're scammers who want to hide their bitcoins or simply those who want to avoid taxes on their BTC income/wealth. Then you might have people who end up dying with the only copy of their wallet's encryption password being the one stored in their head. There would be no way to prove whether or not these coins are actually lost.

[ifightformerkel]

I read a few month ago a article, that NVIDIA engineer John Ratcliff calculated that the total amount of coins that lay over 1.5 years is around 4.200.000 Bitcoins (30% of all bitcoins today).

I think that of this 4.2 million bitcoins, 3.5 million are lost.

And i bet when the price will go around 250 dollar for a while, a lot of more people will lost their private keys.
But i think its good for bitcoin, the value will be higher with so a big amount of lost bitcoins.

[Possum577]

This has to be impossible to assess realistically or with reliability. The anonymity enables each coin outstanding to remain unlinked to a source or person. Further, even if we could assign an owner to the coin we wouldn't know if the coin was lost or just being held.

Certainly a great question. Is there any way to see the count of coins that haven't had any transactions from or against it over a long period of time?

[seoincorporation]

It will be forever an eternal mystery. My only guess is that it's a lot, lot more than many think.

with a lot you mean the 10% of the total btc? or what % you think is lost?

Is a nice topic, maybe together we can find the way to find a good answer for this.

[gentlemand]

with a lot you mean the 10% of the total btc? or what % you think is lost?

Is a nice topic, maybe together we can find the way to find a good answer for this.

I'm afraid my spider sense only stretch so far.

The most likely losses are from the very earliest days. Lots of people on here have written about mining on their computer, not liking what it was doing to it and deleting everything. At the time their computers were worth a vast amount more than what they were mining.

You've also got no shortage of newbies from all eras making a balls up with their coins. Even veterans have made massive mistakes. Bitomat lost the private keys to 17,000 of their customers' coins.

[cakir]

"None of them".

In theorically even lost private keys can be cracked (yes I know it takes millions of years with current technology, but it's not impossible).

[tyz]

Someone summed up the lost BTC only from the thread. In total BTC 134578.27864659
And this is likely just a particle of all lost coins.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.msg8601641#msg8601641

[jwcastle]

Don't forget about the thousands (or millions) of people who quit Bitcoins and left some satoshis behind.  It's probably almost nothing, but a lot of them put together might be significant.

I know I have a bunch of satoshis spread across several accounts & wallets that I own, which I've abandoned.

[Xialla]

ahh such tricky question:)

14.3M mined, from them were 740k goxxed...adding bad luck, human factor and stupid RNG. ok, lets say at least 3M until now...maybe even more.

[evenlydistributingfuture]

Impossible to know... but when they were nearly worth nothing in the start, lot of them were lost for sure.

Yes, we can't be sure of the exact number of lost bitcoins. But:

1. It is not important.
2. It is actually a good thing that bitcoins are lost.
3. Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.

I know this "donation to everyone" idea is from Satoshi Nakamoto's own commentary (or at least that's what I recall), but I don't see it as positive.
If it's true that around a third of all coins are basically lost and gone forever, that hurts far more people than it helps.

The few who bought in early might gain in value, but everyone else in the world loses out. That's a comparative handful of people having coins worth slightly more in exchange for the entire world facing a situation of higher prices and less likelihood to want to transact in BTC.

[Bit_Happy]

Impossible to know... but when they were nearly worth nothing in the start, lot of them were lost for sure.

Yes, we can't be sure of the exact number of lost bitcoins. But:

1. It is not important.
2. It is actually a good thing that bitcoins are lost.
3. Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.

I know this "donation to everyone" idea is from Satoshi Nakamoto's own commentary (or at least that's what I recall), but I don't see it as positive.
If it's true that around a third of all coins are basically lost and gone forever, that hurts far more people than it helps.

The few who bought in early might gain in value, but everyone else in the world loses out. That's a comparative handful of people having coins worth slightly more in exchange for the entire world facing a situation of higher prices and less likelihood to want to transact in BTC.

Why does "everyone else in the world" lose out?
1) There will always be enough BTC, since you can add more zeros and someday buy an awesome new car for 0.0000000000001776 BTC.
2) The eventual race to own "at least one whole Bitcoin" will drive prices to levels that might (today) seem very insane.

Edit:
3) High prices do not drive people away, just wait until you see your first Bull market, Newbie.