What would happen if half or many many users lost their wallets?

[leo7lee]

Hi all, I am a newbie in Bitcoin. I have a stupid question that what is the impact if most of the users lost their wallets?
To my understanding, the number of Bitcoin issued is a fixed amount, if the situation mentioned above happens, what is the impact to the hope ecosystem of Bitcoin?

[Mitchell]

Prices would go up, that's about it I guess.

[Bitbuy]

price would go up, but you would need to establish a certain way of knowing those bitcoins are destroyed....else they are just "sleeping coins"

[leo7lee]

If those coins are really destroyed in some ways, would it be a disaster to the Bitcoin system, besides price going up?

[miner002013]

If those coins are really destroyed in some ways, would it be a disaster to the Bitcoin system, besides price going up?

Think of it as a gold or diamond... The less there is, the higher the price.. Also depends on the demand aswell..

[Mitchell]

If those coins are really destroyed in some ways, would it be a disaster to the Bitcoin system, besides price going up?

Well, you can't really destroy them. Coins get lost when people lose their wallet, things like that. It doesn't infect the Bitcoin system itself and it won't be a disaster.

[Meuh6879]

if most of the users lost their wallets?

in alternative reality, that can append.
in the real life ...  

it's like think that all macosX (in the world) can crash in the same time (for comparaison over windowsOS).

[sssubito]

Bitcoins are never destroyed, you can only loose control of them, i.e. you can't spend them anymore! Simple fact, as long as there is a single copy of the whole blockchain anywhere on this planet or universe, all ever mined bitcoins are happily there and waiting to be spend. Guess, some of them will wait forever unfortunately...

If your last copy of your wallet.dat gets destroyed/deleted and you loose the private key(s) for your various bitcoin addresses (no brain wallet, no paper wallet, nothing left, zip, nada), then you can't spend them anymore. The bitcoins are still there, they are not destroyed, nor deleted.

Though there is still a ridiculously small, rather theoretical, chance to regain control and ability to spend by finding the appropriate private key(s) for your bitcoins. The probability is not 0, but very very [repeat 'very' as much as you like] close to zero. You can assume safely, it's currently not possible and I don't see a way this will change in the near future.

[frankenmint]

Its called Satoshis - the bitcoin becomes something like 42 coin where one coin is valued at like 288 btc.  We would transact in Meu bitcoin .0001s of it instead of .01s or .001s of it.  Like others said, they wouldn't be spendable but the other spendable coins are now that much more rare - Someone smart, someone like blockchain.info, should build a new type so metric that estimates the number of Dead/unspendable coins as a function of the remaining coins in circulation and as a function of the remaining coins to be mined.

[thatbluedude]

it depends
allways correct, never helpfull

loosing lots off private keys != many coins lost

[BTCisthefuture]

like someone else said.... it depends.

if people knew for certain that the coins were lost forever though then the value of bitcoin would go up if . also depends what demand is like though, if  there was no demand for bitcoin then it wouldnt really matter.


Satoshi himself once said that someone losing their coins just means your coins are worth more 

[jongameson]

whom do I tell if I lost money.  To ensure the price gets the biggest boost.

[AltorXP]

whom do I tell if I lost money.  To ensure the price gets the biggest boost.

lol
The price would only be significantly changed if a large amount was lost (100,000+), even then, not by too much

[12648430]

whom do I tell if I lost money.  To ensure the price gets the biggest boost.

If you lose bitcoins, tell everyone by not spending them (easy enough, right?). The value of bitcoin will be affected by the reduced supply.

[roslinpl]

Hi all, I am a newbie in Bitcoin. I have a stupid question that what is the impact if most of the users lost their wallets?
To my understanding, the number of Bitcoin issued is a fixed amount, if the situation mentioned above happens, what is the impact to the hope ecosystem of Bitcoin?

someone somewhere sad that you can look at it as you look at your money / gold / etc.

If you put a 1m$ into a jar and dig it deep into some forest and after that you will forget where you hide it - 1m$ is gone.
Forever. (or maybe in this case someone will find it (after 2000 years ))

So this is same with Bitcoin. If someone will keep 10000 BTC on his wallet, and he will lose his password of something will happen to that wallet. BTC are gone.

So like somebody here sad - price will increase.

But if, if (happens poss.:=0.0000001%) all of BTC users will lost their wallets after all BTC are mined, and only 1 user will stay with a wallet with 0.00000001 BTC inside - THEN Bitcoin is going to die

I think, there are already many many users who lost their passwrd or smthin.

[htimsxela]

whom do I tell if I lost money.  To ensure the price gets the biggest boost.

If you lose bitcoins, tell everyone by not spending them (easy enough, right?). The value of bitcoin will be affected by the reduced supply.

This is correct, it doesn't matter if you tell people that you lost the coins, what matters is that you can no longer sell or transact with them. This reduced supply will quietly play into the buy/sell price.

[MicroGuy]

Hi all, I am a newbie in Bitcoin. I have a stupid question that what is the impact if most of the users lost their wallets?
To my understanding, the number of Bitcoin issued is a fixed amount, if the situation mentioned above happens, what is the impact to the hope ecosystem of Bitcoin?

That is a good question. If 1/2 of the users lost their wallets, the developers would probably try to understand why. But in terms of valuation, I think the price would gradually increase due to the decrease in supply. That's based on the assumption that whatever is broken gets fixed.

[larem]

Prices would go up, that's about it I guess.

This is our assumption, although it may not be true. Something important to think about is that if half the members lost everything they had, they would undoubtedly let others know, and it would cause damage to the Bitcoin system as a whole by keeping people out of it (which we need more people, and money, in order to persist).

[R0yalAir]

what is the impact to the hope ecosystem of Bitcoin?

I don't know about the ecosystem but I do know that impact would be terrible.

[Sonny]

Hi all, I am a newbie in Bitcoin. I have a stupid question that what is the impact if most of the users lost their wallets?
To my understanding, the number of Bitcoin issued is a fixed amount, if the situation mentioned above happens, what is the impact to the hope ecosystem of Bitcoin?

That is a good question. If 1/2 of the users lost their wallets, the developers would probably try to understand why. But in terms of valuation, I think the price would gradually increase due to the decrease in supply. That's based on the assumption that whatever is broken gets fixed.

People lost their bitcoin not because of something broken lol.
They throw away / format their computer before making backups.
They forget the long password used to encrypt their wallets.
They keep their paper wallets in a "safe place", and they somehow can't find it afterwards.
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