Should we change the chart about the inflation of BTC because the lost bitcoins?

[ifinta]

Should we change the chart about the inflation of BTC because the lost bitcoins?

About the third option - "google trends". I see, the google trends shows the amount of newbies - i.e.
A newbie can do things wrong - a lost passphrase, a lost mobile without backup, ...

Please vote

[eminemcookie]

No BTC are known to be lost, even those which people claim to be lost could still one day be accessed so they cannot be removed from the supply. Those BTC still exist so they must be considered. So no, the graph should not be changed.

[TIDOVEE]

Is bitcoin actually lost?
To me bitcoin is not lost the value dropped drastically and if you leave it and the coming bull run catches up with it, it will rise again.
Now, for this moment inflation is not a point because the price is not even good enough to have a normal money circulation.

[kolesozw]

No BTC are known to be lost, even those which people claim to be lost could still one day be accessed so they cannot be removed from the supply. Those BTC still exist so they must be considered. So no, the graph should not be changed.

Actually there are nearly 10% lost, by different calculations. By small wallets like private holders losing their private keys for reasons like failed HDD and no backup to big fishes on different crypto-exchanges.

I voted for: yes, but the value can't be determined. Also, this loss doesn't have any influence on the current spot price.

[hatshepsut93]

There's no way to tell for sure exactly how many coins are lost. 21 million should be understood as the upper limit of available coins.

I don't think that this detail is important enough to start redefining the meaning of Bitcoin's supply. It would only confuse people, and we don't want it because Bitcoin is already pretty hard to learn. Those who are curious enough will find out about the lost coins on  their own.

[St4yInTh3D4rk]

Still the lost of buried bitcoins were plays the part in increasing the demand which makes the price of bitcoin to be increased overall so there is no need to create or adjust the bitcoin price chart and we can't even find how many bitcoins were lost.

[BitHodler]

Actually there are nearly 10% lost, by different calculations. By small wallets like private holders losing their private keys for reasons like failed HDD and no backup to big fishes on different crypto-exchanges.

It's all speculation. Failing HDDs can still be sent to certain services in an attempt to recover the data. I own a failed HDD myself with a wallet.dat file on it containing a little under 0.1BTC that I can't access right now.

It doesn't mean the coins are lost, just that I can't access them right now. By the time the price has reached levels people can only dream about right now it might be worth to have it sent to a data recovery service.

I looked it up, and the cheapest service told me that it would cost at least €1000 and likely way beyond that depending on how much time they spend working on it. You can imagine that there is no point doing it right now....

[Kemarit]

No, I don't think we need to change everything just because coins are lost. And what impact will it bring to the ecosystem? Nothing. If the coins are lost and then recovered do we also need to adjust the price again? It will just complicates thing and might create some confusion for a average user, IMHO.

[BuyingFast]

I don't understand the Google Trends option. I wouldn't consider a newbie more likely to lose his private key.

[ifinta]

Many thanks for feedback.
Yes, it was some bitcoins already lost, the chart should be corrected.

I will it correct, please be patient.
Many thanks for the contribution.

[magneto]

Should we change the chart about the inflation of BTC because the lost bitcoins?

About the third option - "google trends". I see, the google trends shows the amount of newbies - i.e.
A newbie can do things wrong - a lost passphrase, a lost mobile without backup, ...

Please vote

We all know that the actual rate of expansion of bitcoin's currency supply is slower than what thereotically should happen, due to coins that are being lost.

I simply don't see a good enough system that could be used economically in order to quantify exactly how much inflation is actually occuring within the bitcoin supply, nor is there much of a reason to do so. The Google trends idea is interesting, but I don't think it is accurate since bull markets generally generate better google trends results, and more searches doesn't necessarily equal more newbies, which in turn, doesn't always equal more quantity of bitcoins lost.

At the end of the day, what matters is that the supply can't be manipulated by a central entity. That is the most important property of bitcoin in my opinion. Losing BTC and the bitcoin supply curve not always being perfectly lined up isn't much of an issue.

[dothebeats]

How can one gauge or measure how many bitcoins are already lost? The figures that you see on articles and websites were only a guesstimate based on the current circulating bitcoins, active wallets against the total minted coins. It's a useless metric if you ask me, considering that there is no clear-cut way of finding out if bitcoins were really lost or it's just a cold storage of some dude who basically don't want to use the coins until a certain amount of time.

[wuvdoll]

Should we change the chart about the inflation of BTC because the lost bitcoins?

About the third option - "google trends". I see, the google trends shows the amount of newbies - i.e.
A newbie can do things wrong - a lost passphrase, a lost mobile without backup, ...

Please vote

"Lost" bitcoins are a vague term, does bitcoins ever get lost? They are still there in the wild but if you think just because someone forgot their bitcoins in some wallet and can't reach they are "lost" ? They are still there, still making a difference just like a person who would "hodl" their coins. Lost applies exactly same as people who do not sell which is fine by the market since there are still billions of dollars exchanging hands daily.

This type of thing could matter only if we have very few of something but we have billions of dollars worth of bitcoin changing hands daily so apparently the "lost" coins are not that much of a problem right now. We don't have to think about or consider what could be done until we really can reach to a point they matter to us.

[eminemcookie]

No BTC are known to be lost, even those which people claim to be lost could still one day be accessed so they cannot be removed from the supply. Those BTC still exist so they must be considered. So no, the graph should not be changed.

Actually there are nearly 10% lost, by different calculations. By small wallets like private holders losing their private keys for reasons like failed HDD and no backup to big fishes on different crypto-exchanges.

I voted for: yes, but the value can't be determined. Also, this loss doesn't have any influence on the current spot price.

The fact you say 'nearly 10%' and 'by different calculations' is enough to illustrate my point. No one knows how many are lost or if they're really lost forever. As others have pointed out, HDDs can be recovered or maybe one day in the distant future somehow people will gain access to these lost wallets. Unless those coins were destroyed and no longer existed they should always be counted.

[ralle14]

We could say they're termporarily lost. You're free to recover them but overall you can't successfully bruteforce every private key out there and with our current computing power (including supercomputers) it'll take forever before you get an address that's loaded.

On the poll I voted for no because it's been mentioned several times above this type of information unnecessary. Changing it doesn't make Bitcoin more important since we can just divide it to smaller pieces if it gets scarce.

[ifinta]

How can one gauge or measure how many bitcoins are already lost? The figures that you see on articles and websites were only a guesstimate based on the current circulating bitcoins, active wallets against the total minted coins. It's a useless metric if you ask me, considering that there is no clear-cut way of finding out if bitcoins were really lost or it's just a cold storage of some dude who basically don't want to use the coins until a certain amount of time.

I think the inflation don't such simple as we thinking in the charts.
Es exists an amount (I named it "used money") of the money (i.e. Bitcoin) it is used - really and periodically. It could be determined with the analyse of market and transactions. And exists an amount what not was already mined.
But exists an amount what was lost - and some amount in safe. i.e. in paper wallets - for long run.

I think, it is also inflation - if the paper money will be decided to use. In the view of the active market.
We should see - how the "used money" changes... I think it would be simple to do a such diagram. Of course with parameters - and for parameters could be used something uniq for all users.

[ifinta]

Should we change the chart about the inflation of BTC because the lost bitcoins?

About the third option - "google trends". I see, the google trends shows the amount of newbies - i.e.
A newbie can do things wrong - a lost passphrase, a lost mobile without backup, ...

Please vote

"Lost" bitcoins are a vague term, does bitcoins ever get lost? They are still there in the wild but if you think just because someone forgot their bitcoins in some wallet and can't reach they are "lost" ? They are still there, still making a difference just like a person who would "hodl" their coins. Lost applies exactly same as people who do not sell which is fine by the market since there are still billions of dollars exchanging hands daily.

This type of thing could matter only if we have very few of something but we have billions of dollars worth of bitcoin changing hands daily so apparently the "lost" coins are not that much of a problem right now. We don't have to think about or consider what could be done until we really can reach to a point they matter to us.

Please see my post here also:

How can one gauge or measure how many bitcoins are already lost? The figures that you see on articles and websites were only a guesstimate based on the current circulating bitcoins, active wallets against the total minted coins. It's a useless metric if you ask me, considering that there is no clear-cut way of finding out if bitcoins were really lost or it's just a cold storage of some dude who basically don't want to use the coins until a certain amount of time.

I think the inflation don't such simple as we thinking in the charts.
Es exists an amount (I named it "used money") of the money (i.e. Bitcoin) it is used - really and periodically. It could be determined with the analyse of market and transactions. And exists an amount what not was already mined.
But exists an amount what was lost - and some amount in safe. i.e. in paper wallets - for long run.

I think, it is also inflation - if the paper money will be decided to use. In the view of the active market.
We should see - how the "used money" changes... I think it would be simple to do a such diagram. Of course with parameters - and for parameters could be used something uniq for all users.

Your opinion?

[South Park]

There are two problems with the coins that are lost, first of all there are estimations about the number of coins lost but there is not a definitive number so it will be impossible to make a change like the one you are suggesting, and second coins are never completely lost, even if you lose your private key and you do not have a backup the coins can still be recovered if by luck someone generates the same private key in the future, that is incredibly unlikely but the possibility is there and if that happens then those coins can come back and circulate again.

[samcrypto]

Still the lost of buried bitcoins were plays the part in increasing the demand which makes the price of bitcoin to be increased overall so there is no need to create or adjust the bitcoin price chart and we can't even find how many bitcoins were lost.

Yeah, its hard to do that better to focus on what we have right now and if most of the bitcoin are already lost, we can expect a more expensive market which is good fo all of us. So if you love your bitcoin, better to keep it in a safe place or you will just lose it later on.

[exstasie]

There's no way to tell for sure exactly how many coins are lost. 21 million should be understood as the upper limit of available coins.

This is the right way to approach the question. I've seen some estimates from people I really respect (like Jameson Lopp) who put the number at something like 4 million +. So that's a potentially huge chunk of the total supply. No matter what though, it's all based on guesswork. One day, millions of old coins might scare the crap out of people when they get moved and that'll throw a wrench into any analysis about lost coins.