How many Bitcoins are lost forever?

[dbstmddhks]

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.

It's very smart reply !

there is always "lose things"

but fiat is issuing and issuing.. and it cause inflation..!

"lost things are not bad things. it keeps the value!"

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[Denker]

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.

Satoshi alone owns probably a million coins. I'm not sure if these coins are included.
But a few known people of the crypto space say the number of lost coins will be something around 2-3 million.
So yes we will mostly have to deal with a number less than 21 million.
This will make it a bit easier for a few of us to reach the 1 of a million club, when theoretically only 1 million people could have had 21 coins each.
Most of the coins got lost in the very early days. People didn't realized the potential of Bitcoin, therefore forgot about it and their wallets with several thousands of coins for instance.

[prabowo96]

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.

There's a lot of situations with fiat money that was lost, like a lot of coins, paper... Look at Pablo Escobar example, how much money was lost because this guy burried the money and some animal/other thing 'eat' all lol and none know the value of this. The diference here is just one, government can print more

[hawkins]

may around 0.4 BTC for the moment, and I do not want to add more. Well, I did not miss it because gambling BTC or things like that, but the BTC was stolen directly from my wallet. Well, there are some missing because bitcoin minning sites and HYIP. Well, because I so rarely to join sites like it

[BitcoinBarrel]

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.

This is a good estimate. It's hard to tell the amount of kiddos running Bitcoin client on their laptops generating 1000s of coins then losing them.

[thejaytiesto]

By the time we reach 21 million coins in year 2140, I think about 50% of the coins will have been lost forever, if not more. Coins get lost constantly, people forget passes, people lose shit on exchanges, people die and no one can recover coins...

[Doamader]

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.

Had someome be able to confirm id the coins of Nakamoto has been lost forever, because those coins havent changed adress since the begining, and looksa bit insane, soo the total ammount of lost coin can be bigger, but its already a huge ammount, and all days someone is loosing bitcoin.

[Suh]

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.

It's very smart reply !

there is always "lose things"

but fiat is issuing and issuing.. and it cause inflation..!

"lost things are not bad things. it keeps the value!"

Lost things are bad things, for those who lose them!

[PancherBitCoin]

This question is directed primarily to the fact that everyone will just assume or guess the sheer number of casualties. But the real numbers we will never know.

[madwica]

no one can calculate how many coin will be lost daily or even forever, bitcoin has more users and we do not know how many are active and also more users forgot their bitcoin address which have bitcoin balance in each wallet.

[Yakamoto]

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.

Satoshi alone owns probably a million coins. I'm not sure if these coins are included.
But a few known people of the crypto space say the number of lost coins will be something around 2-3 million.
So yes we will mostly have to deal with a number less than 21 million.
This will make it a bit easier for a few of us to reach the 1 of a million club, when theoretically only 1 million people could have had 21 coins each.
Most of the coins got lost in the very early days. People didn't realized the potential of Bitcoin, therefore forgot about it and their wallets with several thousands of coins for instance.

I would assume that these coins had to literally be forked out of the network in order for them to be "irreversibly lost". What evidence do they provide or the number they're giving? Bitcoins that are "lost" in private wallets literally don't mean anything, as they can still technically be "recovered", just after a very, very, very long time of searching.

[sonnyacg]

This question is directed primarily to the fact that everyone will just assume or guess the sheer number of casualties. But the real numbers we will never know.

yes true, I think like that. we do not know how much of a loss of bitcoin in this virtual world. I can only guess and speculate about things like this. so I personally do not know the amount of the loss bitcoin.

[Selly Arumsari]

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?

very tricky question, I can not confirm too ..
but to prevent this thing happened you tell one person that really you believe because if happened will be big problem for you

[Maphistas]

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?

I agree it is a tricky question.  It can be a few million, however this like a few million people leaving loose change under a seat or tossing coins into a wishing.  Lossing private keys can happen even if you are very careful, a misstyped phrase or key is a lot of frustration if there was a lot of Bitcoins stored into the wallet.  It would be important to have a therapeutic support system for those that have lost a few thousand Bitcoins.

[Juggy777]

This is a very difficult question as each and every ones answer will be difficult, like it's not easy to say how many birds are there in the sky, cause at one time they may be more and at times less. I think whenever Bitcoin gets lost the supply decreases which increases the price. So I feel it's good that Bitcoins are lost and the price is increased. So feel relaxed about it and acculumate more.

[John_Dave]

Can someone please explain me how bitcoin can be lost?

[chrisevans]

Can someone please explain me how bitcoin can be lost?

I don't feel they can ever be lost, losing the ability to access your wallet is the worst that can happen, but in reality the coins are still there.

[Fatanut]

Can someone please explain me how bitcoin can be lost?

There are bitcoin addresses that don't have a private key, some people lose their private key, some people accidentally send their bitcoin to a wrong address, the owner of the bitcoin address dies and didn't leave any clue about where is his private keys are stored, etc. Bitcoins that are stored in those addresses can never be recovered again, thus, it is as if it's lost forever. The coin still exists but it will never be in circulation again.

[croutonhexagon]

In my prediction more than 100000 bitcoin are lost May be more than that because some user forget their private key or wallet password and some losses Mobile devices where bitcoin was stored. And already there are many user who had destroyed or thrown away  their hard disk or digital storage media where bitcoin was stored and some pc get affected with virus and crashes the bitcoin's

[requester]

I guess 1 million bitcoin is lost forever because previously it eas too cheap to be considered as money so many might have thought bitcoin as useless and thrown away hard disk or exit their wallet and forgot the password or private key.