Bitcoin casualties

[Bimmerhead]

So I lost some more btc tonight... just disappeared into the ether.

Tonight it was by sending from an online account to what must have been an address in some previous wallet.dat I had.  Previously I've lost bitcoin sending between wallets and swapping wallets around.  My technical incompetence has certainly cost me.

Am I the only one, or could there be a substantial number of bitcoins lost forever?  (Please don't tell me I'm the only one )

[1714173446]

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[1714173446]

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[1714173446]

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[kiba]

I got mine backed up.

[Anonymous]

I threw way hundreds of Bitcoins when they weren't even a cent a piece.

[Nefario]

I almost lost some, the donation address in my profile was for an old wallet on a different machine. Someone sent me a payment to that address. I wasn't even sure if it was the right one.

Nearly 2 weeks later I get to the machine and recover the wallet, all was well. So no I haven't lost yet but it's just a matter of time.

I think some wallet managing app, something that can handle more than 2 wallets at the same time would be quite usefull. It's only a matter of time until someone builds it.

[no to the gold cult]

I worry about the rate of Attrition skewing the value of bitcoin. We need clients that can reduce attrition more so that such effects don't impact the value, even if it makes remaining bitcoin more valuable it's still a screwy effect.

[Stephen Gornick]

I almost lost some, the donation address in my profile was for an old wallet on a different machine.

I'ld be interested in a service that acts as a wallet morgue.  Such a service would accept for upload my old, zero-balance wallet.  Should any bitcoins arrive later for any of the addresses held in that the old wallet, the morgue service provider would take a reasonable cut/fee, such as 25%, and the remaining amount would get sent to a bitcoin address I provided I uploaded the wallet.

Actually I'ld be more interested in being able to import the keys from an old wallet into my current wallet.  That's something on the Bitcoin roadmap I've read, so eventually this morgue concept would be made all but unnecessary I suppose.

[Nefario]

not a bad idea

[Binford 6100]

So I lost some more btc tonight... just disappeared into the ether.

Tonight it was by sending from an online account to what must have been an address in some previous wallet.dat I had.  Previously I've lost bitcoin sending between wallets and swapping wallets around.  My technical incompetence has certainly cost me.

Am I the only one, or could there be a substantial number of bitcoins lost forever?  (Please don't tell me I'm the only one )

did you try rescan the wallets against the block chain?
it may be that you just do not see the balance in your bitcoin client because you were swapping wallets while the block was broadcasted that had "your" transaction in it.
rescan feature in the new client could help

or the old fashioned way, you download the blockchain again to have it scan with your wallet. if you did not deleted the wallet and you used your valid address to send you bitcoins, the are not lost, it's just a little lack of knowledge

btw i've lost some of my bitcoins gambling

[Bimmerhead]

thanks tilopa but I don't think I could even find the address again.
I'll just hope they reappear when I open one of my old wallets again

[BitterTea]

I almost lost some, the donation address in my profile was for an old wallet on a different machine. Someone sent me a payment to that address. I wasn't even sure if it was the right one.

Nearly 2 weeks later I get to the machine and recover the wallet, all was well. So no I haven't lost yet but it's just a matter of time.

I think some wallet managing app, something that can handle more than 2 wallets at the same time would be quite usefull. It's only a matter of time until someone builds it.

Hey, I did build it already. I think it might even work on Linux, but nobody trust my code.

Also, I should mention that I have not significantly tested this, so any feedback is great.

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3735.0

[BitterTea]

can your app do wallet merge? not export import but choosing 2 wallets and merge them to 1?
i'd try it

No, unfortunately it cannot add or remove keys from the wallet. It merely does a dumb encryption of the entire wallet using the public key of the specified GPG recipient. This means that any time your wallet is open, it is vulnerable. To me, this is better than it being vulnerable all the time, in addition to the added ease of working with multiple wallets.

Sorry!