How many Bitcoins are lost forever?

[john2231]

When I read the question first, I didn't think it was about lost private keys. Come on, there are many verifications (phone, email, secret sentence) which help even if you lost the password and stuff. I thought it was about burnt Bitcoins and how many are burnt already is an interesting question. I have seen the news about 2000 BTC approximately, but I am not sure whether we can believe it.

Burn why they are burn bitcoin i think bitcoin is not the same as pos that burn coins every year..
Maybe halving that can reduce the supply every time halving is done. it can affect the value and increase the price. because the price of bitcoin is always depends in supply and demand..

[BitMaxz]

Maybe there isn't a big number of lost bitcoins but there is much big number of lost wallet keys and passwords, hard drive damages and etc, all this facts causes lost of bitcoin. We can't say specified number of lost bitcoins but there is some ways to discover it's nearly number. If person hasn't made transactions for 12 months or more, there is high chanse that wallet and bitcoin is lost. I think there must be some similar tools in blockchain to know number of lost bitcoins and that bitcoins must be remade because it's lost and lost things can be founded.

It is hard to know the exact number of bitcoin lose or forgot their wallet password..  this is just my speculation maybe we have 30% of bitcoin lost or forgot bitcoin wallet. maybe old people are die too and forgot to tell their love ones that they have lots of bitcoin in their wallet..
And i think many investors in bitcoins before are forgot their bitcoin because bitcoin is cheap before they are holding lots of bitcoin and forgot the wallet or send it to wrong address.. Unlike now that the price of bitcoin is very high or expensive the value is not the same unlike before..

[Adbitco]

I think it's very difficult to tell the exact amount but I remember to have read somewhere on the internet that it's about 4M

[uname]

When I read the question first, I didn't think it was about lost private keys. Come on, there are many verifications (phone, email, secret sentence) which help even if you lost the password and stuff. I thought it was about burnt Bitcoins and how many are burnt already is an interesting question. I have seen the news about 2000 BTC approximately, but I am not sure whether we can believe it.

I've heard that someone had forgotten to remember the identifier and password when they had quite a lot of bitcoin, this would be very unfortunate, bitcoin was wasted

[arransiv]

When I read the question first, I didn't think it was about lost private keys. Come on, there are many verifications (phone, email, secret sentence) which help even if you lost the password and stuff. I thought it was about burnt Bitcoins and how many are burnt already is an interesting question. I have seen the news about 2000 BTC approximately, but I am not sure whether we can believe it.

I've heard that someone had forgotten to remember the identifier and password when they had quite a lot of bitcoin, this would be very unfortunate, bitcoin was wasted

Web wallet?

Money are lost in a lot of ways, fiat currency or cryptos.

Hope one day someone can create an alt where missed money goes to some charity instutition.

[rababo]

It's difficult to calculate how much bitcoin are lost. I'm sure there're many bitcoin users since the beginning until now who left bitcoin or lost their private keys.
Those bitcoin lost can't be recovered back unless the owner know his/her private keys. So, I guest it will be lost forever.

[MingLee]

No Bitcoin is technically lost forever, just stuck in wallets or in private keys that are not currently accessible by someone right now. If you really wanted to, you could easily get away with finding them, eventually, after a lot of time and money is expended.

The only coins lost forever are those which are forked out of the chain.

[hv_]

I don't care about the lost number = lost coins by losing the private key to spend.

I care about the free float and people trying to own = hodl at least 1 btc for long time.

Right now I d guess we could calc this very roughly to

16mio (created)  - 5mio ( hodled , see other threads here) -  x lost (x=4mio?)  =  FF (free float = 7mio?)

So if only 7 mio is free, that' s scarce!

[millgates]

I don't care about the lost number = lost coins by losing the private key to spend.

I care about the free float and people trying to own = hodl at least 1 btc for long time.

Right now I d guess we could calc this very roughly to

16mio (created)  - 5mio ( hodled , see other threads here) -  x lost (x=4mio?)  =  FF (free float = 7mio?)

So if only 7 mio is free, that' s scarce!

Do Not worry becouse the holder still have to sell their bitcoin to get profit. But the biggest problem is if they lost the key that mean the bitcoin can not be used forever.

[Zadicar]

It's difficult to calculate how much bitcoin are lost. I'm sure there're many bitcoin users since the beginning until now who left bitcoin or lost their private keys.
Those bitcoin lost can't be recovered back unless the owner know his/her private keys. So, I guest it will be lost forever.

Agree with you  ,  its really hard to give  precise   calculations regarding with this hence  we already  know that  there are  lots of bitcoins  users  our  there . Especially to those   early adopter of bitcoin. There are  lots of   circumstances  which  causes for  bitcoin  to be  lost forever , those bitcoins are  just floating and   theres  no access into  it  as  long you dont  have  the private keys.

[Rooster101]

Many people lost access to their wallets and many of them don't exactly know how much bitcoins are there in their wallets so it is hard to estimate exactly much bitcoins is lost forever.

[HaXX0R1337]

interesting question, and really hard to answer.
Im sure there are so many forgotten bitocins, maybe much much more than we think !

[d-trixx]

Lost keys must be very difficult, the fact is that if the purse has become inaccessible to access is always possible to restore. It is possible to lose more bitcoin should be. users may simply threw their wallets losing interest

[berserkinterbuy]

Many people lost access to their wallets and many of them don't exactly know how much bitcoins are there in their wallets so it is hard to estimate exactly much bitcoins is lost forever.

Nobody will give the right answer. There the question is already doomed to failure. Perhaps everyone would like to know when it will end bitcoin mining and to have to be sure that its price will go up despite the fact that the loss could be a huge amount.

[dothebeats]

Afaik and as far as my memory goes, it's sitting at ±2M and the number is increasing every day. Well, for me, it shouldn't be a concern, because as far as basic economics tells me, as a commodity gets scarcer and scarcer, the price for it appreciates, so as bitcoin. If we are to recover those lost coins, it would be very impossible for us to do so because apparently, we would need quantum computers and harness the energy of our own star system just to brute-force the shit out of those wallets

[Top2016]

but what if the most are lost

[20kevin20]

There are LOTS of accounts with low amounts in them. It looks like the total is small, but it's just an illusion - because there are probably MILLIONS of wallets out there with 1k-5k satoshis. There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins lost forever. I'm wondering what will happen in the future... I mean, people will keep losing their money and although there are small sums, the fact that there are A LOT of transactions makes a big amount out of it.

[chrisivl]

There are LOTS of accounts with low amounts in them. It looks like the total is small, but it's just an illusion - because there are probably MILLIONS of wallets out there with 1k-5k satoshis. There are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins lost forever. I'm wondering what will happen in the future... I mean, people will keep losing their money and although there are small sums, the fact that there are A LOT of transactions makes a big amount out of it.

Perhaps indeed a large number of lost, but I do not think that one purse can be lost such amounts. Most likely in small batches from Tsey user interest waned with time and work is not interesting to chop.

[danherbias07]

Depend on how many will not be careful with tgeir coins. Some might forget their passwords or could get their hardware have problems in the future.

[rajasumi3]

Well its a very thoughtful question .some people just started doing bitcoins at the very begining because it was too interesting .but days passed and maybe they have got a better option to make more .well they just went wrong .bitcoins are the future and they are nee market .its the best for the future.kudoos