How many Bitcoins are lost forever?

[LiberOptions]

I think that every time someone loses the wallet key, the coins inside that wallet is lost forever. I wonder if that can be accounted for...

[Alvin Fahriza]

There's no way to correctly know how many coins are lost forever. I guess this will only be possible to know after all coins have been mined.

I think you should know the lost, it can make you more cautious back dude

[Albert Einstein]

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

[draceus]

I recently lost 0.01 BTC is currently trading play, if I count all amounts bitcoin I omit, maybe it is 0.2 BTC, the amount to quite a lot of thought  

are lost all you bitcoin in trading ? lol.
How can. are you a trader altcoin / BTC?
I also sometimes choose the wrong altcoin. I buy coins wrong, and prices continue to fall and die. approximately I lost more than 0:03 BTC

I was also lost a lot of altcoin some time before I was trading with bitcoin and I was bought some coin and after sometime it's worth was fall down and I was emergency that time so I was sell that time my coin and loose in my trading.

[gregyoung14]

Heartbreaking losing your BTCs over dice, gambling and what not. Wish I could have just bought things on the market section.

[Rescue Squad]

People can lose their private keys or forget their passwords for their wallets every day all over the world. We can't know how many bitcoins are thrown into oblivion.

[Pattart]

People can lose their private keys or forget their passwords for their wallets every day all over the world. We can't know how many bitcoins are thrown into oblivion.

What kind of stupid people who could forget their password. he was too careless, I think not many people who have experienced this dude. I've never once experienced

[Pk880058]

i dont know how can anyone forget the password or the seed key when it can be written in a safe place, wallet.dat file is ok that you have to save it in other place if computer gets crashed that time this problem occurs but that can also be solved , so if this all things are avoided with small safety then their wont be any lost of Bitcoins forever

[Supercrypt]

an important part may be lost because some people forgot their keys or from other causes. that makes it even valuable...because from 15 mil. coins probably only 12-13 millions are still active - do you know what will mean to own 1 coin ? 

My question now is: how good/bad is this for Bitcoin? Yes it's value may go up as more coins are lost, but on the other hand it does not inspire confidence to people if your money can be lost this easily!
Just like I once read that fraud should be added to the transaction cost, just like the cost of fraud is included in a credit card fee. If you include this, Bitcoin transactions are much more expensive than conventional banking. If 10-20% of all bitcoins are lost in just 7 years, how likely are you to still have your coins a few decades from now?

It is bad for bitcoins as the network constantly keeps checking the number of coins mined everyday and with most of the coins being lost in wallets, the number of coins in transaction are pretty less. It cannot affect the price but it could lead to shortage of coins just like what happens to fiat. There is a limit to the number of coins that can be mined.

[blackmachinegun]

maybe a lot of people who suffered like me. lost more than 1 BTC in a ponzi or hyip.
I've lost 0.14 BTC in one day, because I invested the site to be a scam, I was very sad at that time

[pereira4]

You would need to know very specific data about who owns what and it's impossible, therefore its just not possible to tell, we also don't know if an address that hasn't done any movements for years means the dude lost all he coins or its just a case of long term holding. Just to give a random number I estimate at least 1 million coins lost forever by now.

[tyz]

This thread is not about how many Bitcoins someone has lost in trading or elsewhere, rather the thread is about how many Bitcoin are lost because they are not accessible anymore because the private key has been lost.

Your Bitcoins are not really lost, they are in the hands of someone else now 

I recently lost 0.01 BTC is currently trading play, if I count all amounts bitcoin I omit, maybe it is 0.2 BTC, the amount to quite a lot of thought  

[Pattart]

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 ?

[voztata]

I guess over 2000 BTC must have been lost by now as there are so many users who come to this forum complaining they have 10-20 BTC held up in their bitcoin wallet which they cannot recover due to lost/forgotten password.

[bitgolden]

I guess over 2000 BTC must have been lost by now as there are so many users who come to this forum complaining they have 10-20 BTC held up in their bitcoin wallet which they cannot recover due to lost/forgotten password.

Has anyone got an answer of total lost bitcoin yet. Other than lost password, many users who owned bitcoins in 2010 just abandoned their coins due to the low price and then never showed up. So, it would be more hard to find the real number.

[bitbitch]

30%

[ekoice]

30%

This question needs to be clarified first since it is quite confusive. There are 2 ways either the bit coins permanently lost or become lost from network if we lose our keys or passwords.
 

 
 
 

[blackbird307]

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

[bitbitch]

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

i watched a bitcoin presentation last year based on academic research. the extrapolated figure given was 30%. much of that exists as small satoshi quantities marooned in long since abandoned accounts. too little money for account holders to care about, but in total a great deal of money at present prices.

even i have a small quantity sitting in an account that i can't be bothered to manage. at present prices it's probably worth about $5.

[thejaytiesto]

A lot, and the good news for all of this is that the amount of Bitcoins being created will eventually be smaller than the amount of  Bitcoins that are the being lost, so that means more Bitcoins will be lost that newly created ones which means deflation which means holders get richer.
Right now owning 21 BTC means waaay less than 1 million people on earth as possible owners of 21 BTC each ever.