How many Bitcoins are lost forever?

[ransomer]

The fact is this Bitcoin ultimately has a finite shelf life. there is no way that people won't for a myriad of reasons lose small amounts of Bitcoin until eventually we are all using a fraction of a Bitcoin and eventually we won't want to divide down anymore.

Death particularly will wipe out a large percentage of coins. I doubt very few people on here have told someone else their coin addresses, and guess what, many won't know their last day on earth was the day they got into their car to go shopping etc.

I agree with most of that.

Coins are lost, and will continue to be lost.

But I'm not sure that people will not just continue to use increments of btc. I think they might?

[bitsat alien]

I estimate that somewhere between 30-40% of all BTCs are out of circulation and will never be accessed again.

[mallard]

I estimate that somewhere between 30-40% of all BTCs are out of circulation and will never be accessed again.

Where is your source, or did you just make that up?

[SebastianJu]

I have a lot to lose bitcoin, probably around $ 80, it's all because the scam site by offering many advantages 

Those coins arent lost forever, they only are owned by someone other.

When you read the thread start you would see that this is about coins that cant be accessed anymore because the private keys are lost.

The amount of coins lost forever because of scams are very high for sure too.

[Borisz]

I estimate that somewhere between 30-40% of all BTCs are out of circulation and will never be accessed again.

Where is your source, or did you just make that up?

Here you go, link to first page post.

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.

[gentlemand]

I have coins that haven't moved for over a year and a half. They look pretty undead from here.

Let's say you did have 10,000 coins mined in 2010/11. You'd be pretty hard pressed to spend them all. You're probably enough of a believer to not want to sell all of them. Chances are they're staying put until you can spend them on something you want or need.

[LouisVuitton]

If I had to give an estimate I would have to say at least 2,500,000 bitcoins are lost.

[acejudas]

I have coins that haven't moved for over a year and a half. They look pretty undead from here.

Let's say you did have 10,000 coins mined in 2010/11. You'd be pretty hard pressed to spend them all. You're probably enough of a believer to not want to sell all of them. Chances are they're staying put until you can spend them on something you want or need.

I think I could find plenty of things to spend all those 10,000 coins on if I had them. If only I had heard of cryptocurrency in 2012 instead of 2013. Admittedly, it would be better to hold them for many years to come..

[txbtc]

Impossible to know, on the other hand other coins also become more valuable if the coins are dormant forever and can't be spent by anyone.

[skeletonbit]

there was a story of a guy who had a HDD with a large amount of Bitcoin on it, and he threw it away, and went digging through the dump.  7500 Bitcoin mined on a laptop!! Those were the days, LOL!!

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site

[DiscoverCebu]

there was a story of a guy who had a HDD with a large amount of Bitcoin on it, and he threw it away, and went digging through the dump.  7500 Bitcoin mined on a laptop!! Those were the days, LOL!!

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site

Yeah I heard that as well, I would've searched my ass off on that dump if that had happened to me. But it never will as I still online wallets for my transactions and bitcoins.

[bitcoinmar]

I think no one have idea about this how much coins lost forever because few days back I check few addresses which are not in use and have hundreds of bitcoins and some peoples still sending 

[Cryddit]

It's unlikely that he sold his coins since they haven't been moved on the blockchain. The only way he could have sold them while still remaining undetected would be if he sold the private keys to these addresses instead.

Goodness; why in the world would someone buy private keys???  The original owner could still have them and move the funds before the buyer.  The only way I would agree to buy private keys would be if the original owner sat there while I moved the funds.

Because they are not traceable through the block chain.  Every bitcoin you spend gets linked through the block chain to where you got it, and usually to other coins you had in your wallet at the time and where you got them.  It's pretty easy to analyze how you use bitcoin and see your past transactions, if you start with a single address of known ownership.

But if you buy a private key from someone, the coins do not move on the block chain.  If they are freshly mined coins, they have no history to link to anything whatsoever.  So they can be spent, carefully, without being linked to any of your previous or future purchases or spends on the block chain.

The buyer immediately transfers the coins to his own private key so that the seller can't spend them, but as far as block chain analysis can tell, it's still not linked to anything else the buyer has.

[Cryddit]

If I were doing an alt, I would allow anyone who mined a block to collect the coins from the oldest addresses, up to 0.0001%, rounding up, of the UTXO in blocks older than 5 years. 

This should never and will never be part of Bitcoin because it violates Bitcoin's fundamental protocol and the basic prospectus under which Bitcoin users acquired their coins.

But it would be a good rule if it had been that way from the outset, because it would reduce the uncertainty over how many coins are lost and thereby improve the accuracy of economic modeling and forecasting and the efficiency of markets.  Under that model, in the long run no coins would be lost.

[David Rabahy]

The buyer immediately transfers the coins to his own private key so that the seller can't spend them, but as far as block chain analysis can tell, it's still not linked to anything else the buyer has.

Oh, so, only this transfer is on block chain.  Still the buyer is vulnerable until this transfer is confirmed.  Moreover, I still fail to see the advantage over just creating a new address for the Bitcoins and transferring them into it.

[Jeremycoin]

Is that possible to a "lost private" key Bitcoin wallet to get hacked by someone, and send out the Bitcoin?

[Amph]

Is that possible to a "lost private" key Bitcoin wallet to get hacked by someone, and send out the Bitcoin?

usually those lost private keys are gone forever because they were stored in HD that are now damaged beyond repair

but if you are talking about those othe private keys that are protected by password and the pass is simply forgotten, than i guess they could be brute forced in the future with a quantum computer

[S4VV4S]

Is that possible to a "lost private" key Bitcoin wallet to get hacked by someone, and send out the Bitcoin?

A private key cannot get hacked.
The password to a Bitcoin wallet is a different story and that mainly depends on how strong the password is.
So for wallets is a yes and no situation.

[Hopalong]

Is that possible to a "lost private" key Bitcoin wallet to get hacked by someone, and send out the Bitcoin?

I guess there are several people trying to hack some of those "lost" adresses. The problem is the vast number of combinations you must go trough to find the key. Better to wait a few hundred years before you start.

[Cryddit]

Is that possible to a "lost private" key Bitcoin wallet to get hacked by someone, and send out the Bitcoin?

It's possible.  If the password was generated, for example, on an Android client before they fixed their system Random Number Generator. 

Otherwise, it's technically possible but a bit less likely than Pluto turning out to be made of antimatter.