Bitcoin market cap

[rexxarofmoknathal]

Does it really matter if we have 18 million or 14 million BTC out there? For me it has no gauge whatsoever, and I don't know why people make things complicated. Those coins could be lost forever or it could be found by someone but I don't think it will have a significant effect on the market price. Having 21 million supply is rare already.

I agree with the above the fact that we're missing a couple million isn't the point. I think the point we can all take from this is that BTC is rare and it will become even more so and whether some out of the 14 or 18 million is missing either temporarily or forever isn't something to fuss about. The fact remains that BTC is a valuable asset and hopefully become even more so now that the limited supply has been halved.

[yhiaali3]

It is not possible to accurately predict how much real Bitcoin is on the market and how much Bitcoin is lost, there are Bitcoin currencies that Satoshi mining and that no one knows exactly how much, I also heard that some people are still sending to the address of the first Bitcoin block that Satoshi mining In addition to wallets that have lost the private key.
 In short, there are large amounts of Bitcoin missing but no one knows exactly how much it is, but there are other Bitcoin quantities that are included with Satoshi and in unused wallets and these can be used and entered the market at any time.
Recently, 50BTC has been moved from a sleeper wallet since 2011, no one knows who this wallet is and there are probably many of these sleeping wallets and can be moved at any time.
All of these things make it impossible to really calculate the Bitcoin volumes on the market.

[age7393]

And where did you get that this is true? Since you saw it somewhere or did someone tell you? It seems to me that these sources may simply not be reliable.

[darewaller]

If we have solid proof on lost bitcoins then we may go skipping them from calculating total marketcap of bitcoins. But, we must need to understand that simply including only 14 million bitcoins for calculations against 1 trillion marketcap, bitcoin prices will not jump to $77k levels. Like many people suggested marketcap is non-influential number on effecting on any of trading or value finalizing things. It is only for comparison and nothing more.

Due to the insignificant of marketcap calculations, we are ignoring about the lost number of bitcoins.

Knows, some services may hear you opinion and may start think about re-arranging the criteria to calculate all new type of marketcap of bitcoins. But, its impact on markets of bitcoin may not be felt.

[ene1980]

If you factor in a 30% loss of bitcoin, then a   $1 trillion market cap would equal around $77,000 per bitcoin.  Losing a private key is like throwing a gold coin in the ocean.  It can be argued that the gold coin is still there.  But for all intents and purposes, the gold is non-existent, because it would be impossible to recover.  The point I'm making in this post is that bitcoin is much rarer than published.  There are not 18.4 million bitcoins out there.  There are only around 14 million.

The major problem here is that the 30% loss of bitcoin cannot be stated as a solid evidence, the coins that are not moved for years does not mean that the owners are dormant and they lost their coins. The valuation of bitcoin is determined by the open market and if people find it rare then the price would move up eventually but it must have an intrinsic value for them to move higher all the time.

[dentolas]

This is an interesting point, the main problem is that most of your idea is based on assumptions, who knows how much btc is lost? where are those 30% comming from? and how can someone know how many private keys have been lost? can't some also be found again?
A very interesting subject as if there were any trustable data on this, it could heavily affect price of btc...
For now a value like a market cap can't be based on assumptions... i think

[MCobian]

To be honest, with regard to the number of lost bitcoins, no one can be sure, it can really be lost or it can appear suddenly.
Debates like this will make us tired and useless to debate. I think it's better if we focus on collecting bitcoin, after all, what
circulates 18 million is true or not. That has no effect on the price of bitcoin right now, we shouldn't think too much regarding
market cap. Bitcoin promotion and adoption are the most important for now.

[suzanne5223]

if a private key to a bitcoin address has been lost, then the bitcoin in that address should, in my opinion, be erased from the market cap. 

Yes, the bitcoin is lost but cant erase from the bitcoin market cap because the lost bitcoin is still stored on the bitcoin and it the private keys which can be use to unlock the funds (bitcoin) that's missing.
To make more understandable. Do you what coin burning is cause the situation is just like it.

It is published in articles that a bitcoin market cap of $1 trillion would equal around $50,000 per bitcoin.  This is a substantial underestimation.  If you factor in a 30% loss of bitcoin, then a   $1 trillion market cap would equal around $77,000 per bitcoin.

Some article writers spread false information and the best way you wont be misleaded is through more research and asking question on here.

  Losing a private key is like throwing a gold coin in the ocean.

Thats correct and this is the reason why some metallic private keys/seed storage keeper was introduced.


 

[mk4]

I'd still look for the real world usage. Marketcap feels much like a pissing contest. The outcome is mostly useless.

Marketcap is really just a rough metric on how much money is invested in a certain asset. No more, no less. While it's a relevant metric when doing research on certain assets(again, a lot less relevant when talking about most altcoins), it was never a direct metric in determining an asset's real world usage anyway.

[Negotiation]

Well the market cap of Bitcoin is much lower in fact it is very difficult to determine the price of other currencies No one can control the rise and fall of the market but in the case of Bitcoin it is much easier to focus. Its circulation around the world is at the top of the Bitcoin market cap competition That's why it's better to focus on Bitcoin now.

[rodskee]

To be honest, with regard to the number of lost bitcoins, no one can be sure, it can really be lost or it can appear suddenly.
Debates like this will make us tired and useless to debate.

That's possible, chances that those so called lost btc are just secretly holds by certain individuals or groups and just appear
inside the market one day.

I think it's better if we focus on collecting bitcoin, after all, what
circulates 18 million is true or not. That has no effect on the price of bitcoin right now, we shouldn't think too much regarding
market cap. Bitcoin promotion and adoption are the most important for now.

Though the arguments in terms of actual numbers of existing coins will possibly increase it's value from the market it's
still best to think of investing more and try to accumulate and hold.

[Cnut237]

I would still argue that if the consensus is that a certain number of coins are irretrievably lost, then this would already be factored into the price - a reduction in supply increases relative demand.
And current price is only attainable for the first order in the book, it's not like everyone could immediately sell their bitcoins and get current market rate.

[ralle14]

Is it a good news for the bitcoin? I don't know how to do math but this 22%, if ever those bitcoin was really lost then we are able to keep the price resistance from that point, so those economists who calls it bubble will just eat their words. And yes, we are all confused about this lost bitcoin or 'not-moved' bitcoin or something, but one thing is for sure there will be more "lost" bitcoins in the future and you won't know it.

Some market capitalization from different websites are assumptions, see how different they are each time.

It's most likely good since all of us wants to profit from Bitcoin right and there's not much of an issue with the lower circulating supply since we still have several denominations to use if we ever go down that route. We might not know the real estimate but it's hard to say that it had an impact in today's price because the miners still have a few million left.

[nelson4lov]

Well the market cap of Bitcoin is much lower in fact it is very difficult to determine the price of other currencies No one can control the rise and fall of the market but in the case of Bitcoin it is much easier to focus. Its circulation around the world is at the top of the Bitcoin market cap competition That's why it's better to focus on Bitcoin now.

Exactly my point. Since we don't know the true of scope of how many bitcoins are actually "available" and not lost. This shouldn't be our concern for now – Bitcoin is not even at $50K yet as the so called "financial experts" had predicted. It's better not to deal with the maths now and keep our focus on bitcoin and accumulating more. About the lost bitcoin, it should also be taken into consideration that most early adopters and buyers of Bitcoin have lost access to their wallets (forgotten private keys, phases, seeds etc). That isn't been accounted for. So you see, I don't see the point. It's a good thing bitcoin supply is capped at 21M coins.

[kryptqnick]

I am confused as to why the bitcoin market cap is published to be (today) about $175 billion.  This is calculated by multiplying the current bitcoin price (~$9500) by the number of bitcoins mined (18,406,000).  Yet it is believed that approximately 30% of all bitcoins ever mined have been lost.  if a private key to a bitcoin address has been lost, then the bitcoin in that address should, in my opinion, be erased from the market cap.  It is published in articles that a bitcoin market cap of $1 trillion would equal around $50,000 per bitcoin.  This is a substantial underestimation.  If you factor in a 30% loss of bitcoin, then a   $1 trillion market cap would equal around $77,000 per bitcoin.  Losing a private key is like throwing a gold coin in the ocean.  It can be argued that the gold coin is still there.  But for all intents and purposes, the gold is non-existent, because it would be impossible to recover.  The point I'm making in this post is that bitcoin is much rarer than published.  There are not 18.4 million bitcoins out there.  There are only around 14 million.

It's just that the term 'market capitalization' has a certain definition and a formula to calculate it. This formula is simple and doesn't take into account those coins that are lost forever. If one even tried to calculate the market cap by subtracting those lost coins, estimates would vary wildly, I believe. Take what's known as Satoshi's bitcoins. Nobody knows whether they are just not touched on purpose or access to them is lost forever. And I'm sure it's not even close to being the only such case when we have no idea if a big chunk of BTC should be counted or not.

[peterurb]

I don't think so. What if someone is only HODLing it or will find back private keys and sell them? That means that Coinmarketcap will have to change the circulation amount every time when some coins which were marked as lost. That's extremely weird and it doesn't work even at gold or dollars. And even without changing of the market cap will Bitcoin have an increasing price for even a few decades and will be very profitable.

[OneGoLuck]

To be honest, with regard to the number of lost bitcoins, no one can be sure, it can really be lost or it can appear suddenly.
Debates like this will make us tired and useless to debate.

That's possible, chances that those so called lost btc are just secretly holds by certain individuals or groups and just appear
inside the market one day.

That is possible. Many coins that were thought of being "lost" have already resurfaced.
Just a few weeks ago someone signed a message with 100 addresses each containing 50BTC.

I was surprised that the bitcoin market did not react to it in any way. That was 5000BTC that were thought lost until that moment.