Can lost Bitcoins be traced?

[olamidey]

Firstly, there's nothing like lost bitcoin as all bitcoin can be used traced. The only thing can happen is if the owner looses the wallet details and can't access it, then it's not lost per see. Just that it becomes unspent and untill it is accessed, it's referred to as such. For hacked or stolen bitcoins, the exchange where its stolen from knows he wallet address that has the funds. They can only watch the address for signs of transactions but can do anything to stop it.

The major advice here is to keep your wallet's details private to avoid stories.

[Kocret02]

How is it possible to track lost or stolen Bitcoins? While public addresses are not directly linked to a person's identity, the Blockchain itself is widely transparent. Knowing how many Bitcoin are lost is key towards establishing a correct circulating supply of the cryptocurrency.

As such, there might be a slight miscalculation on the total number of Bitcoin in circulation. If it's a lot more less than what's circulating, then I believe that Bitcoin's price should be higher due to its highly-limited supply.

Nonetheless, do you think it's widely possible to track lost Bitcoins? Your thoughts about this would be highly appreciated for educational/learning purposes.

tracking lost bitcoin can detect the bitcoin address, now it can be done. but if bitcoin has been sold and made into money by anyone who takes it, I don't think it can be returned.

[Ucy]

Nobody is totally sure about the correct number of lost bitcoin. It is unfortunate that People make crazy claims and don't even try to  use estimate or guess.
There could be wealthy people who just buy and hold long-term. Some of what appear like lost coins may be owned by this people.

[Gaff]

If you know the original address where that Bitcoin was moved. You'll be able to track where that last amount is, however for the responsible person who got your coin will not be able to know or trace.

Even though we've able to trace the addresses to where the bitcoin was being sent, I don't think so you'll be able to recover it from the hackers who steal bitcoins. Tracing the transaction path is the most certain ways to have brief information in order to confirm where the funds was sent. Blockchain.info website can help us trace the lost bitcoins, as it was having hash links used to determine which bitcoin wallet address is the final destination of the bitcoin funds.

[libert19]

...but in a few years if 1 sat is worth more than a chewing gum. people might want to spend it. thus bringing it back into regular use

Highly unlikely unless Bitcoin go feeless, even in lightning network fees are more than 1 sat.

[pooya87]

...but in a few years if 1 sat is worth more than a chewing gum. people might want to spend it. thus bringing it back into regular use

Highly unlikely unless Bitcoin go feeless, even in lightning network fees are more than 1 sat.

what you need to keep in mind is that bitcoin evolves based on necessity. if the price rises so much that 1 satoshi is worth something then by then we would have had split 1 satoshi into smaller units to make it possible. but to get there price has to reach a ridiculously high level which will either never happen or take at least 30 years so there is no point arguing about it right now.

[Lizzylove1]

A stolen bitcoin can be traced, using the transaction hash, although it may not be tied to the thief name, but with the increasing KYC on some wallet providers, tracing might be lot easier. While stolen bitcoin can overly be tracked to its end point. If such a thief wishes to offload the stolen bitcoin in an exchange, the exchange can be alerted for a freezing of the account and demand a compulsory KYC before withdrawal to unravel his identity. All these are cumbersome. There some full blown Privacy coin that may never be tracked because they leave no trace.

[Abiky]

no bitcoins are ever 'lost' 'deleted' every coin still exists and is trackable on bitcoins ledger

however there are reasons where some UTXO's (unspent balances) are not moved, used, circulated between users regularly.

all bitcoin can be tracked. there is nothing secret or special. so tracking bitcoins is not a question.
the question should be judged as which bitcoins should be deemed as unusable currently, meaning what defines 'lost'

many come up with different lists such as:
UTXO's linked to public keys which have an obvious sign that the key does not have a private key someone knows of
UTXO's with dust amounts so small,, to move/spend them would cost more than the value of the UTXO
UTXO's coin-age is more than 6 year old

however even these cases are not 100% proof of those coins being 'lost'. thus when tracking the bitcoins that meet the criteria list of what most would deem as 'lost' should not be treated as a guaranteed lost value, but more of a idea/suggestive stat/estimate.

after all some UTXO's are of only 1sat. meaning people dont bother including them in spends. but in a few years if 1 sat is worth more than a chewing gum. people might want to spend it. thus bringing it back into regular use

Those are interesting facts. Knowing (or at least having an idea) of how many Bitcoins are lost, could be the key towards determining the true value of the cryptocurrency. Since Bitcoin is a fully transparent cryptocurrency, it's not that hard to trace lost Bitcoin at all. But as you've said earlier, there isn't a proof that coins are 100% lost based on said cases. For example, there could be a Bitcoin address with some balance in it that's not been touched for a long time. This could mean that the address has been used for cold storage instead of being "lost".

Still though, a mechanism that would detect lost/stolen Bitcoin would be nice, as it could return those coins to the network (which in effect, prevents them from being wasted). I believe that "Faketoshi" was working on something like this, but I can't seem to find the article related to the subject.

All in all, Bitcoin could be greatly undervalued if one takes into consideration all of the lost coins on the network. 

[Astvile]

Yes you can track stolen bitcoins but cant retrieve them.Blockchain network is easy to acces just needs a few clicks and search the wallet the bitcoin come from for example your wallet address then you can easily track that bitcoin when its getting pass to another wallet.

[BigBos]

I think, in the case of tracking coins that have come out, it will be very difficult. even when you check the transaction on the blockchain, it will be very difficult to track. we know that so many transactions are done, and that happens anonymously. maybe you can find out if the bitcoin is sent to a market that uses KYC. but however this is very difficult.

[ralle14]

The blockchain brings anything in and out, everything that have been done in the past is always traceable. A lost money form hack or scam can be traced by anyone.

Not all lost bitcoins come from hack or scam those are just few reasons how Bitcoins could end up being unspendable.

All in all, Bitcoin could be greatly undervalued if one takes into consideration all of the lost coins on the network. 

Maybe undervalued but not by a lot, imo the amount of lost coins we have now and more in the future seems like less of a factor in making it valuable since Bitcoin can be divided in to very small pieces on chain and possibly smaller off chain. 

[bitcoin-shark]

i think it's possible to follow the tracks at least if one don't use a mixer that makes lots of small transactions impossible to follow, the easiest point is when it try to turn bitcoins into fiat via some exchange...

[ajaysingal0001]

i think we can see where the bitcoin are transferred but cannot trace though it is a decentralization process there is no way to trace the stolen btc because there is no address where we can track them.Its better to use encrypted wallet.

[1Referee]

All in all, Bitcoin could be greatly undervalued if one takes into consideration all of the lost coins on the network. 

It all comes down to supply and demand. If the demand isn't there, which is what we had last year, then the price will keep going down.

As long as most of the coins are being used for speculative purposes on exchanges, it doesn't really matter how many coins have been lost or people hodl for the long term. With how thin the orderbooks are on most exchanges, a relatively small dump can still tank the price down with ~10%. Coinbase alone holds almost 1 million BTC on behalf of their users. Lets say that half of that is just a few clicks away from being sold. That's a scary thought?

There are so many hardware wallet options out there that there is no reason to trust Coinbase with that many coins.  

[rjp55]

How is it possible to track lost or stolen Bitcoins? While public addresses are not directly linked to a person's identity, the Blockchain itself is widely transparent. Knowing how many Bitcoin are lost is key towards establishing a correct circulating supply of the cryptocurrency.

As such, there might be a slight miscalculation on the total number of Bitcoin in circulation. If it's a lot more less than what's circulating, then I believe that Bitcoin's price should be higher due to its highly-limited supply.

Nonetheless, do you think it's widely possible to track lost Bitcoins? Your thoughts about this would be highly appreciated for educational/learning purposes.

You can't track it unless the thief doesn't turn into fiat or put into a centralized exchange. But when he does, it is easy to find him.

[Iykecollinz]

There a whole lot of anonymity associated with bitcoin transactions, being traced would have meant to be able to know the source of the coin, the wallet it is being transferred from and whose just like what is obtainable in the traditional banking system. A who lot about bitcoin is cryptic, I think that is where the term cryptocurrency got originated from. We can only seen transactions ID, amount or coin value and time of delivery, other informations relating to the owner can't be found. I think this is the reason behind the introduction of KYC by most nascent crypto projects but I doubt if they will be able to solve the identity issue that cannot be found with bitcoin transactions

[Gaaara]

There is no such thing as "Lost" bitcoins since most of bitcoins that are not circulating through market is the storage that is inaccessible and even if its not circulating it cannot be considered as "Lost" instead its still considered as retrievable and the fact that there is no tools to know whether a certain coin is actually in someones possession there is no reason for us to indicate that there are some "Lost" bitcoin.

To be honest we neither care nor we need to, as long as there is a sufficient coin that is circulating we don't need to bother considering non-circulating bitcoins to be lost.

[libert19]

There is no such thing as "Lost" bitcoins since most of bitcoins that are not circulating through market is the storage that is inaccessible and even if its not circulating it cannot be considered as "Lost" instead its still considered as retrievable and the fact that there is no tools to know whether a certain coin is actually in someones possession there is no reason for us to indicate that there are some "Lost" bitcoin.

To be honest we neither care nor we need to, as long as there is a sufficient coin that is circulating we don't need to bother considering non-circulating bitcoins to be lost.

People who died, or lost access to their wallet's private keys are no less than lost.

[Pattart]

How is it possible to track lost or stolen Bitcoins? While public addresses are not directly linked to a person's identity, the Blockchain itself is widely transparent. Knowing how many Bitcoin are lost is key towards establishing a correct circulating supply of the cryptocurrency.

As such, there might be a slight miscalculation on the total number of Bitcoin in circulation. If it's a lot more less than what's circulating, then I believe that Bitcoin's price should be higher due to its highly-limited supply.

Nonetheless, do you think it's widely possible to track lost Bitcoins? Your thoughts about this would be highly appreciated for educational/learning purposes.

tracking lost bitcoin can detect the bitcoin address, now it can be done. but if bitcoin has been sold and made into money by anyone who takes it, I don't think it can be returned.

Bitcoin is Decentralized you know, even though you know the identity of the bitcoin address holder who stole your money. you can't ask them to return your money, there are no police or special institutions that can freeze the thief's wallet and give back your money. it's a useless effort

[rachellee]

The amount of bitcoin that was stolen can be traced and the wallet address/es wherewith it was withdrawn to, but the identity of the person who owns that address/es, I don't think it could be traced, unless they make each address like bank accounts in the near future. Only the transaction is transparent, but the identity of the holders remain private that's why the culprit could hardly be found and every transaction is irreversible. Unless they run a KYC for owning a wallet address or a body regulates the blockchain, it would be impossible to make the bitcoin thieves pay for this cybercrime.