The lost Bitcoins... a question of curiosity

[Damnsammit]

So I was sitting here reading an article about securing your wallet, and I just started to wonder how many times someone has screwed up and lost their wallet.dat either by mal-intent or self-stupidity.

There can only be 21 million, but how many have already been lost forever?  Isn't it possible that someone had 100 BTC in 2010 and then said "meh, this thing sucks" and just deleted the files from their computer? After all, it wasn't worth much back then so why try to sell a meager 100 BTC at that time?

Is there a way to determine how many lost Bitcoins there are? 

/end random thoughts

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[Peter Lambert]

So I was sitting here reading an article about securing your wallet, and I just started to wonder how many times someone has screwed up and lost their wallet.dat either by mal-intent or self-stupidity.

There can only be 21 million, but how many have already been lost forever?  Isn't it possible that someone had 100 BTC in 2010 and then said "meh, this thing sucks" and just deleted the files from their computer? After all, it wasn't worth much back then so why try to sell a meager 100 BTC at that time?

Is there a way to determine how many lost Bitcoins there are? 

/end random thoughts

there is this search box at the top of the page, use it to find "known lost bitcoins" to get an idea of how many bitcoins are lost for sure, you can guestimate as well as anybody else how many more are unknown lost bitcoins. You could also do some reading on the "bitcoin days destroyed" metric which can help estimate how many old coins are moving, the moving of old coins is the only way to know for sure they have not been lost this whole time.

[jl2012]

So I was sitting here reading an article about securing your wallet, and I just started to wonder how many times someone has screwed up and lost their wallet.dat either by mal-intent or self-stupidity.

There can only be 21 million, but how many have already been lost forever?  Isn't it possible that someone had 100 BTC in 2010 and then said "meh, this thing sucks" and just deleted the files from their computer? After all, it wasn't worth much back then so why try to sell a meager 100 BTC at that time?

Is there a way to determine how many lost Bitcoins there are? 

/end random thoughts

I have a table here: https://docs.google.com/a/ij.hk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahdy3Je_nYdOdFVocm4yTzhZOW1waWd6SFJIVHUwYUE#gid=0

Please donate if you like it

[odolvlobo]

Short of finding and asking the owner of each and every address, there is no way to determine if bitcoins are lost or not. There are various ways to guess at the amount, but the real answer is that we will never know.

[Cudahuda]

I'm pretty certain a very large amount of bitcoins have been lost.  I'm sure many people played with bitcoin and then forgot about it in the early days, leaving their wallets to be abandoned forever.

[Trongersoll]

I'm pretty certain a very large amount of bitcoins have been lost.  I'm sure many people played with bitcoin and then forgot about it in the early days, leaving their wallets to be abandoned forever.

Speculation.

[sergio]

The lost coin is currently not a problem. But in a far future a simple fix without causing inflation would be to make Bitcoin still more divisible you would still have a limit of 21 million coins but instead of 8 decimal places maybe 16 and if that is ever needed it would mean that a BTC is an extremely valuable unit as such we would talk in satoshi units. Incresing the 21 millions units would be a catastrofict mistake on the other hand making it more divisible if needed in a far future could be a good idea if needed. The reason behind making the currency more divisible is that if lots of coins are lost the currency becomes more valuable, and if a satoshi where to be worth more than a penny which could happen than more divisivility would be a good thing, but as it stands now currenly additional divisibility is not needed, that is the reason that lost coins will not be a problem.

[sergio]

To make my point it is clear that coins will be lost over time but as long as there are sufficient units of currency to represent small amounts then its all fine, the problem only occurs if a satoshi becomes a valuable unit the proper solution is to make the currency more divisible like having milisatoshis, the wrong way of handling this is the Ben Bernancle method by creating unwanted inflation, the 21millions BTC limit must never change even if coins are lost, since one use of. BTC is to save and it is impossible to know if a coin is saved or lost if you are not the owner. One final comemt saving is a good thing since it allows for greater purchases like a home that without saving would not be possible.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

I'm pretty certain a very large amount of bitcoins have been lost.  I'm sure many people played with bitcoin and then forgot about it in the early days, leaving their wallets to be abandoned forever.

Speculation.

Well personally I know at least 4000 bitcoins were lost because that's the amount of bitcoins I have lost.

[AliceWonder]

I have a table here: https://docs.google.com/a/ij.hk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahdy3Je_nYdOdFVocm4yTzhZOW1waWd6SFJIVHUwYUE#gid=0

Please donate if you like it

Love the 1BitcoinEater address - would have put whole address in but can't because I refuse to install Google's thing that's needed for cut and paste.
But that address was awesome.

[Trongersoll]

I'm pretty certain a very large amount of bitcoins have been lost.  I'm sure many people played with bitcoin and then forgot about it in the early days, leaving their wallets to be abandoned forever.

Speculation.

Well personally I know at least 4000 bitcoins were lost because that's the amount of bitcoins I have lost.

Which isn't really a large amount in the overall scheme of things.