Bitcoin forgotten in time ¿?

[Ligareaux]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered?
I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling

[iamTom123]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered? I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling.

Well, those figures can be subject to speculations and maybe some wild assumptions. It is actually interesting to think about those coins which are left in different wallet service providers and even those who are already lost in the process. These figures are actually adding to the scarcity of Bitcoin as the number of coins available is already fixed. Those who are just holding their coins are speculating that soon Bitcoin would really rise and there are many of us here like that. I am not sure if this is healthy or not but then again it is certainly their own right to do so as Bitcoin is decentralized once you own it then it is all up to you as there is no central bank that can demonetize it or change it value by different types of manipulations.

[VitKoyn]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered?
I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling

There are lots of speculations and predictions about this but the truth is there is not even one way to figure out the total amount of Bitcoin are stuck in wallets and lost forever because of those careless early adopters that forgot their private keys, but I think this is not a problem but it is even more helpful in Bitcoin value because the circulating supply decreased while the demand is increasing. I also thought that it might be possible to know if an address is inactive but I realized that it may not be active because the owner is just holding his/her Bitcoin for long term investment.

[oaz7t]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered?
I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling

yes this situation can happen and in the countries where it is legal and licensed exchanges are present, then the passwords can be reset/recovered and the bitcoins can be claimed by the long time holders.
But where the exchanges are not legal/authorised its difficult if you hold and forgot your credentials after significantly longer span of time. So its better to keep the backup of all the information and share it with your loved ones to claim in case of any uncertainty or death of the holder.
 

[dinoloverpete]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered?
I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling

It's really impossible to know such things and that's one of the problems with decentralization. I suspect that many many bitcoins are lost and many more will be in the future. The most likely will be from persons who store their details on their pc and then it is stolen or broken.

[partysumo]

I'm sure thousands of bitcoins which were purchased when bitcoin was like a dollar each, are forgotten and lost. Think about it, millions of dollars gone forever, and nobody will ever know where they are. Really makes me think.

[allthingsluxury]

A tremendous amount have been lost and more will be lost. This only adds to the value of those that remain however.

[bloodyvio]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered?
I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling

there is no way of knowing how many bitcoins are missing, including forgot the wallet passwords.

and I believe someone must have bought bitcoin 5-7 years ago,
they might buy bitcoin in large quantities and the price was very cheap.
let's just say 1 bitcoin below 4 $
because bitcoins are not so well known at the time, they underestimate and forget their bitcoin.

[WhichIsGood]

How many bitcoins are lost, in wallets, forgotten, or someone who bought some dollars years ago and never looked back again, or in passwords not remembered?
I know that looking at wallet without movements is not a good indicator, since, there are people who have just hodling

The fact that bitcoin is decentralized and only you yourself know where your bitcoin is stored is one of the advantages of this technology but it is also somewhat like a double edged sword because once you forget your keys, then might as well consider your bitcoins gone forever because there is no way to recover them. We could only lament the loss of those coins and to those people who lost them especially if they bought it years ago when it was still dirt cheap. sigh...

[Tyrantt]

Possibly 100k+, since I know just for one guy that threw away his HDD with around 30K bitcoins so it's absolutely possible for something like that to happen occasionally when bitcoin was at a low price. Tho, there was a discussion on what should be happening to those bitcoins, more precisely to the bitcoins that remained on a wallet that connected to the internet such as web wallets. I've suggested and imo one of the best possible solutions is that in case someone forgot the password or died while having bitcoins in his possession, those bitcoins are to be returned to the original miner after ~10years of remaining on that wallet, so like that bitcoins that are being held won't be disturbed and those that are "lost" would be dropped back in the circulation. Because how time passes there will be a lot more password forgetting and people quite possibly dying without sharing private keys with someone and the number of bitcoins will be decreasing slowly, by tiny amounts that is.

Tho, this system could quite possibly bring up big security problems.