Can lost Bitcoins be traced?

[cryp24x]

Based on how Blockchain Technology works, I think it depends. Why it depends? Because as far as I know only transparent things on the chain is the amount of the Bitcoin and the BTC wallet address. If the owner of the receiving BTC wallet address was properly identified then it will be traceable. What if that existing BTC address have already an existing amount on it before the transfer? then it will be sent to other multiple BTC address and split again into another set of multiplle BTC address. Then the BTC will be used to an trading exchange to Altcoins. It is possible (nothing is impossible, it will just take time) but it will really take really lots of work and effort but still at the end, no hard evidence that the money circulated was all from your wallet. I hope I clearly stated the scenario.

[izanagi narukami]

No, Bitcoin is untraceable and it is impossible to traced you need to secured your private key in order to safe your bitcoin and mostly it is not easy to catch the thief who stole your bitcoin.

Let say it can be trace and my stolen bitcoin's fund ended into this address.
My question is there any proof that able be claim/declare or the way to proof to the system that it been stolen from my address ?

[pushups44]

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.

It's not possible to exactly track the number of lost or stolen bitcoins due to its pseudonymous nature, but presumably statistical methods can be developed to provide a rough estimate. I suppose this estimate could be derived from a combination of surveying and analyzing bitcoin investors and studying the movements within the blockchain.

[Crypto5060]

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.

Is there really a measure to rightly say a Bitcoin is lost, that's can it be known which wallets private key has been lost access to because this is the only way it can be recovered. By first identifying wallets whose private keys has been lost can such really be done?

[Duzter]

No, Bitcoin is untraceable and it is impossible to traced you need to secured your private key in order to safe your bitcoin and mostly it is not easy to catch the thief who stole your bitcoin.

Let say it can be trace and my stolen bitcoin's fund ended into this address.
My question is there any proof that able be claim/declare or the way to proof to the system that it been stolen from my address ?

From my understanding it is possible to track the stolen funds, even when the funds get dispersed it can be kept track following the transaction. There won't be any proof that the respective fund has got stolen, it happens same as all other transactions. Until the receiver sends it back it is impossible to get back the funds.

[Koobtcgal]

As far as I know, lost bitcoins can be easily tracked but the sad thing is that you cannot do anything to get them back. The only way one may be lucky during a wallet hack or wrong transaction is that if the new owner sends the bitcoins to an exchange site, that exchange can be contacted to put a hold on the new owner's account. Even with this, it doesn't happen simply as I have written it. It mostly happens among exchanges and also if it involves very large transactions. A lost of 50$ worth of BTC may not push an exchange like binance to give you much time for investigation.

[Wingo]

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.

It can be traced but it cannot be recovered. If it is turned into fiat, then it can be tracked and the person who did turn it into fiat can be arrested and that is the only way to track or even recover the funds, once it goes out of the blockchain by the form of fiat. The blockchain cannot be hacked and you cannot recover those bitcoins that are moved to other wallets by the hacker, the bitcoin blockchain is made to be immutable.

[BitHodler]

By first identifying wallets whose private keys has been lost can such really be done?

Of course not. All these 'lost' Bitcoin articles just assume that they are lost because they haven't seen any movements throughout the years. This in no shape or form can be used as metric.

People have different standards and different situations they go through in their life. An example of this is coins that didn't move during the 2017 bull run, did move when the price broke through its $6000 yearly support level in 2018.

People here kept wondering why that is, but it's likely that they either need the funds badly, or that they lost confidence in Bitcoin. Everyone is a top hodler during price increases, but people turn into weak hands on the way down.

[Vinalians]

Almost every token in the blockchain is recorded and not as lost. Some people still not understand the difference between burnt and lost coins.  Bitcoin can be traced we all know that. You can always look up your wallet but you cannot do anything about it unless you have your private key and have access in that specific account.
The supply of bitcoin is limited but for now, we have a lot of supply and it will take so many decades I guess to be sold out.

[maldini]

No, Bitcoin is untraceable and it is impossible to traced you need to secured your private key in order to safe your bitcoin and mostly it is not easy to catch the thief who stole your bitcoin.

Let say it can be trace and my stolen bitcoin's fund ended into this address.
My question is there any proof that able be claim/declare or the way to proof to the system that it been stolen from my address ?

If a thief uses several wallet transactions for money laundering, that is quite difficult. But if the thief sends to several empty wallets, it's quite easy because only the funds are always sent when tracked.

For example, when someone steals from your wallet, then sends to exchange a, then sends to exchange b, then sends to wallet a, then sends to exchange c, then sends to wallet b, in my opinion this is difficult because usually in their exchange will send user funds to the main wallet after their funds have been entered, then the exchange will send funds through the main wallet. So we won't know whether it's our funds or not.

Unless the thief sends to a wallet, then sends it to the wallet b, then sends it to the wallet c which is where all the wallets are empty and this is quite easy to track because that is the only incoming fund.

[finbad]

No, Bitcoin is untraceable and it is impossible to traced you need to secured your private key in order to safe your bitcoin and mostly it is not easy to catch the thief who stole your bitcoin.

In case, when the password and other data to get access to BTC wallet was lost, people can get help. At least American scientist Jason Miller uses hypnoses to "drag out" the information from his client's subconscious and in 50% of cases, he gets success.

[casperBGD]

interesting question, since everything is transparent, there are only BTC that are not used, which could be due to private key lost, but since amounts are known and public, i do not think that these BTC shall be noted as lost, just out of circulation
it is always possible that owner will find his private key

[Abiky]

It's not possible to exactly track the number of lost or stolen bitcoins due to its pseudonymous nature, but presumably statistical methods can be developed to provide a rough estimate. I suppose this estimate could be derived from a combination of surveying and analyzing bitcoin investors and studying the movements within the blockchain.

I guess that's the only way to have an estimate of how much Bitcoins are lost or stolen. Given that the Blockchain doesn't contain IDs of people using Bitcoin, it may be nearly impossible to exactly identify if a certain number of coins had been stolen or lost. With some analysis though, we could verify public addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain to try discovering "dormant" coins.

Speaking of this, Satoshi's stash of Bitcoin within the Blockchain may be lost as the coins had been "dormant" for quite some time. Still though, this could be a cold storage wallet as coins stored there remain inactive until the owner spends them with the corresponding private key. Knowing that Bitcoin's blockchain is fully transparent, should allows us to devise new analytical methods in order to help discover people's lost or stolen coins. As time goes by, this will greatly improve for sure.

As far as I know, there are several Blockchain analytical tools available for government use today. Perhaps, such tools have the ability to trace Bitcoin far beyond our reach that we've never thought possible. While this is somewhat good to help fight crime (money launding, etc), it's also bad in the sense that it invades people's privacy.

Nonetheless, as Bitcoins are lost or stolen, the available circulating supply seems to be getting scarcer each day. Just my thoughts

[luigi3]

Yes it can be trace but only the transaction and not the one who handled it,this is the advantage of bitcoin if you are a big whale bit this is disadvantage for who got scammed.

[Koobtcgal]

Lost bitcoins can be traced but the fact is that there is nothing you can do about it when you find where it has been sent. So yes, you can trace your lost bitcoins and even your spent bitcoins but nothing can be done about it unless maybe you want to do a 51% attack to reorg the transaction at your desired time.

[ccryptopark]

I would imagine they could but you would need a pretty advanced technology from a cyber security firm like ciphertrace to help you trace them

[denzkilim]

No, Bitcoin is untraceable and it is impossible to traced you need to secured your private key in order to safe your bitcoin and mostly it is not easy to catch the thief who stole your bitcoin.

How does Bitcoin became untraceable if it's a public ledger where all transactions are viewable by the public or anyone who wanted to see it? Even if a hacker hacked your Bitcoin you can still trace the transaction and its destination wallet but to trace who is the hacker that will be another issue and it will surely take a lot of time and effort before you can trace the person.

[aplistir]

How does Bitcoin became untraceable if it's a public ledger where all transactions are viewable by the public or anyone who wanted to see it? Even if a hacker hacked your Bitcoin you can still trace the transaction and its destination wallet but to trace who is the hacker that will be another issue and it will surely take a lot of time and effort before you can trace the person.

Well. You can track the coins, BUT you can't know if the thief is still the owner, or if he sold them when the coins moved to a new address.

If you could follow a 10$ note. What use would it be. After the note changes hands is it still a stolen note?
If a thief uses a stolen 10$ note in a Macdonalds, and then Macdonalds takes it to a bank, Can you accuse Macdonalds as being a thief, because it has a "stolen" note?

Every time the address changes, the owner could change too. That makes blacklisting and following coins pointless.

[velive08]

I think it's difficult to track bitcoin, maybe it can if there are certain methods of tracking bitcoin. or maybe you can ask for the help of the admin exchange that is the destination of the coin to be traded and buy who owns the coin of course the exchange must apply Kyc to users so they can track through registered identities.

[Wayan_Pedjeng]

Bitcoins are infinitely divisible and that means that if the hackers attempt to mix the coins, then it can be very difficult to track them. For example, lets say that BTC10 is stolen from a Bitcoin user by a bunch of hackers. One BTC can be divided in to 100 million Satoshi, and 10 BTC can be divided to 1 billion satoshi. Now how can you track these one billion fractions, if the hackers move them from one wallet to another multiple times?