Bitcoin Supply Loses 1,500 Coins Per Day, Says Crypto Analyst

[Ramaraj]

Cryptocurrency analyst Timothy Peterson claims that the Bitcoin network is losing 1,500 BTC every day. This decreases the Bitcoin circulation to less than 14 million.

Read full article on coin quora Your Regular crypto Updates.

https://coinquora.com/bitcoin-supply-loses-1500-coins-per-day-says-crypto-analyst/

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[BlackHatCoiner]

How exactly is he claiming that? Where's the proof? If we're talking about burning addresses, I highly doubt that 1500BTC are burnt every day.

This is some stats that shows the assumed lost coins:



So the total lost bitcoins are about 1,5 million. But, it doesn't mean that 1500BTC were getting burnt every day for 3 years. I think something happened with a guy named MtGox and he lost hundreds of thousands... bitcoins...

[larus]

It will be interesting to see what methods will invent to return this money into supply in the future

[20kevin20]

It will be interesting to see what methods will invent to return this money into supply in the future

None. Makes no sense to create a method to return lost coins. And first of all, who and how do you decide whether a coin is dormant in a hodler's account or lost.. and who receives them?

Lost coins are going to be just gone forever. The scarcer the supply, the rarer the Bitcoins. In the end, it's good for all of us. "Consider it a donation to everyone", as Satoshi himself once said.

[hd49728]

Bitcoin lost are from early bitcoin adopters. They adopted bitcoin too early and they did not care about their private keys and lost their bitcoin forever. Those lost bitcoin can be seen from UTXO.

Inactive bitcoin addresses after more than 3 years can be from people who lost their bitcoin. You can check with holdwave.
https://hodlwave.com/

[DougM]

How exactly is he claiming that? Where's the proof? If we're talking about burning addresses, I highly doubt that 1500BTC are burnt every day.

This is some stats that shows the assumed lost coins:



So the total lost bitcoins are about 1,5 million. But, it doesn't mean that 1500BTC were getting burnt every day for 3 years. I think something happened with a guy named MtGox and he lost hundreds of thousands... bitcoins...

I agree this is dubious.  Here are the two tweets (including one clarification) and the referenced report, but really no evidence of the 1,500 BTC/day burn rate.  I think that is just a crazy or wishful thinking figure.





April 2020 Cane Island Research paper discusses how bitcoins can be lost:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d580747908cdc0001e6792d/t/5e98dde5558a587a09fac0cc/1587076583519/research+note+4.17.pdf

• A user accidentally throws away hardware.
• A user loses their keys.
• A user dies without having made arrangements to transfer keys.
• A user sends bitcoin to the wrong address, one which is not currently managed, where the keys are lost or the address is otherwise defunct.

We can estimate that since 2010, about 4% of the Available Supply of bitcoin has been lost each year. This puts the current Available Supply at about 13.9 million coins, well below the 18.3 million Total Supply figure publicized. This means that about 28% of all bitcoins have been Irretrievably Lost. This figure is consistent with research conducted by Ratliff in 2014 (n. 5) and Chainalysis in 2017.

[Pffrt]

There's no explanation exactly how this 1500 BTCs are ost each day. I have gone through the whole article but got no point of claiming such things. Moreover, there are some coins which are supposed to be lost but no one can confirm. Anyway, it seems he is trying to indicate the bitcoins which are at hand of hackers but can't use at the moment for some reason.

[Upgrade00]

They adopted bitcoin too early and they did not care about their private keys and lost their bitcoin forever. Those lost bitcoin can be seen from UTXO.

I came across a report on how wired magazine mined about 13 bitcoins back in 2013(Bitcoin fluctuated within the range of $50 to $1000), but for some reason tore up the private keys, freezing up the coins permanently. At that time the price had shown potential to grow, making their decision a lot stranger, although they claimed it was a measure taken so as to remain neutral in their coverage of Bitcoin's network down the years;
"We talked about donating it to a journalism institution, or setting it aside as a scholarship. But we decided that if we gained any benefit from it at all, it would color our future coverage of bitcoin," says Calore. "So we just destroyed the key, knowing full well that it could eventually be worth six or seven figures."
@OP, I didn't download their research PDF, but I think the figures thrown are quite vague and cannot be deciphered with any bit of accuracy using any tool. For 1,500BTC to be lost daily, then large holders or numerously small ones would lose access to their private keys or send bitcoins to a wrong (and dormant) address daily. This figure may have been possible in the early days of Bitcoin when it had less speculative value.

[Bitcoin_bullish]

So the total lost bitcoins are about 1,5 million. But, it doesn't mean that 1500BTC were getting burnt every day for 3 years. I think something happened with a guy named MtGox and he lost hundreds of thousands... bitcoins...

He probably assumes that 7 million Bitcoins will be lost after a hundred years. This is reasonable considering that many will lose access to their Bitcoins, some will die and take them with them leaving nothing to relatives, and anyway, many more millions of Bitcoins may be lost under different circumstances. Perhaps he is wrong but what can happen in 100 years, or in 200 years.

Mt.Gox was hacked multiple times from 2011 and they only went public about it in 2014 when the exchange collapsed being unable to handle withdrawals. These bitcoins were not lost but stolen, this is different as they can be accessed as long as someone holds the private keys and many were laundered until 2017.

This number, 1.5 million, does not contain the 1.1 million Bitcoins mined by Satoshi. Chainalysis also reports that close to 4 million Bitcoin have been probably lost forever (read here)

[so98nn]

I mean come on, if we lost 1500 coins everyday then isn’t it will increase the price per coin over the time ?

You know why? Because supply of bitcoin will drop dramatically with this rate and seriously its huge amount lost from the actual supply. That’s definitely gonna make things upside down when it comes to prices.

I hope we are not ruling out the possibility of demand and supply here.


That’s, 18,71,82,000.00 United States Dollar lost from the total market of bitcoin realm every year. That is great % of it. Revert me if I’m wrong. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

Lost coins are going to be just gone forever.

"Forever" is a long time. At some point in the future (maybe in few decades, maybe in a few centuries), quantum computing will effectively "break" elliptic curve multiplication. At this point, any "lost coins" held in an address with a known public key become hackable and therefore can re-enter circulation. This will include all very early coins stored on "Pay to Pubkey" addresses prior to the implementation of "Pay to Pubkey Hash". It will also include any inactive coins stored on addresses which have made an outgoing transaction, as the public key is revealed when a transaction is made. (Presumably at some point before that happens we will fork to quantum resistant addresses, and all coins in active use will be moved to these addresses, but a lot of old inactive coins could suddenly become active again).

Because of this, it is premature to call any coins "lost" unless they have been provably lost.

[BlackHatCoiner]

"Forever" is a long time. At some point in the future (maybe in few decades, maybe in a few centuries), quantum computing will effectively "break" elliptic curve multiplication. At this point, any "lost coins" held in an address with a known public key become hackable and therefore can re-enter circulation. This will include all very early coins stored on "Pay to Pubkey" addresses prior to the implementation of "Pay to Pubkey Hash". It will also include any inactive coins stored on addresses which have made an outgoing transaction, as the public key is revealed when a transaction is made. (Presumably at some point before that happens we will fork to quantum resistant addresses, and all coins in active use will be moved to these addresses, but a lot of old inactive coins could suddenly become active again).

Because of this, it is premature to call any coins "lost" unless they have been provably lost.

If a private key must be 2^256 and cannot intervene that (like more than 2^256), then I call some coins lost forever. Yes, the addresses like satoshi's ones may be brute forced in the future with quantum computers, but what about this kind of addresses?

1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxy1kmdGr

There is no 2^256 private key that generated that address. Thus, there is no proof that there is a private key that generates that address. As I said, only if we can't intervene that range of numbers: (1, 2^256). Otherwise, as far as I know about quantum computing, there won't be any hash encryption that can stand on its way. Although, if no private keys within that range can fit that burning address, then they are burnt for good.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Although, if no private keys within that range can fit that burning address, then they are burnt for good.

Hence my statement, "provably lost".

However, given that the space of valid private keys is slightly less than 2²⁵⁶, and the range of valid addresses is "only" 2¹⁶⁰, then it is highly probable that there exists a private key which could spend coins on that address. It is also incredibly improbable that such a private key would ever be discovered.

Although these coins are not provably lost in the same way that unclaimed block rewards or OP_RETURN coins are provably lost, you can probably safely assume they will never be spent. Such coins are in the minority though - a few thousand at most - compared to the potentially millions of coins which could become active again if elliptic curve multiplication is broken.