How does bitcoin market cap take into acount forever lost bitcoins

[Inspectron]

Right now Bitcoin market cap is about $316,001,197,150 for a bitcoin price of $17,029.88, doing the math ( not my forte ) that means they are taking into account 18 556 650 coins in existence.
It´s fairly known that way more than 10% of all bitcoins is forever lost.
So my questions:
Is there a more reliable market cap calculation out there? 
How does this affect evaluation,  for example when comparing bitcoin to gold.
What would be the best method of knowing how many coins still exist?

1st time post... so maybe a bit of a newbie kinda questionnaire.
stay cool good people of the internet 
 

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[philipma1957]

No all mined coins x price = market cap.



Think gold do we count the gold in sunken treasure ships?
Do we count the gold in the ground?
Do we count the gold in the astroid belt?
Do we count the gold hidden in undiscovered burial grounds?




Bitcoin is more accurate as we know edit known exactly how many coins exist.

BTW every lost coin can be recovered if agreed upon by consensus.

Pretend there are 2 million lost coins.

We could agree  that a wallet/address not touched for 50 years goes back into the pool of 21 million coins.


look at block 17. it sits still since 2009

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/000000003ff1d0d70147acfbef5d6a87460ff5bcfce807c2d5b6f0a66bfdf809


https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1LPBetDzQ3cYwqQepg4teFwR7FnR1TkMCM

no withdrawal so in 2059 it gets zeroed out and goes back to the 21,000,000

btw this fixes the idea that we run out of coins. in the years 2050-2100

So with a proper vote dead addresses with so called lost coins are not so lost.

year ----- btc

2024 =  3.0625
2028 =  1.53125
2032 =  0.765625
2036 =  0.3828125
2040 =  0.19140625
2044 =  0.095703125
2048 =  0.0478515625
2052 =  0.02392578125
2056 =  0.011962890625
2060 =  0.0059814453125    so add  coins back from abandoned accounts in 2059

eventually no abandoned or lost coins occurs, but we never go over 21 million.

[aesma]

We actually don't know how much coins are lost. Also, they might not really be lost. We can be certain that there will never be more than 21 million BTC as that is a core characteristic of BTC. However I could see events that would put lost coins back into circulation, like philipma1957 is suggesting for example.

[Fesatmas]

according to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin market capitalists make up 67% of all crypto market capitalists. a crypto analyst on twitter said:

"If Alt Action resembles 2016, - then Alt lows on a strong ALT-BTC pair are likely to enter or are close to entering. I emphasize a strong word here as our samples from 2016 all end top performers - even USD lows are more likely to be. already entered ". @Stillman_

in other words, many analysts hope that Bitcoin will soon reach its previous high. from $ 17,100 to $ 20,000.

[Ucy]

Right now Bitcoin market cap is about $316,001,197,150 for a bitcoin price of $17,029.88, doing the math ( not my forte ) that means they are taking into account 18 556 650 coins in existence.
It´s fairly known that way more than 10% of all bitcoins is forever lost.

10% is about 1.8million of the current supply lost forever. I wonder how they determine the 10%. Probably by considering coins that have remained unmoved for a long period of time?

What would be the best method of knowing how many coins still exist?

I think this is simply determined by the number of bitcoins mined so far

[bittick]

There's just no real calculation happening there to take into account all the lost bitcoin. I mean, how we calculate if we don't even know which coin is lost in the first place.
The current market cap in my opinion is just a reflection of how the market supposed to value if all the mined btc aren't lost and that's it.
Can't really do something when we literally can't do something about all those bitcoin that lost.

[Lucius]

It´s fairly known that way more than 10% of all bitcoins is forever lost.

Who says that? Some companies that on completely unfounded assumptions, present data that cannot be verified in any way. If BTC has not been moved from an address for x years does it mean it has been lost? There are a lot of lies and deceptions when it comes to BTC, don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Is there a more reliable market cap calculation out there? 

If you believe that 10% is really lost, you deduct that amount from the total amount currently in circulation and you will get a new market cap - but in the end these are just numbers, because the only real BTC is the one you control

[fiulpro]

See I don't know if the numbers are correct but these forever lost coins can be taken as long term HODL , which does mean that they are actually beneficial for the holders and traders.

They provide a certain stability in this market.
Thus I do think that even if they don't take it into account, it's not a big deal.

Plus I totally agree with the fact that , "present data cannot be verified" since this is a matter which is more personal and thus many of those people might even forget to report or might have passed away. Therefore the wallets cannot evaluate if the person did loose those coins or are they holding it for long term basis???

[philipma1957]

See I don't know if the numbers are correct but these forever lost coins can be taken as long term HODL , which does mean that they are actually beneficial for the holders and traders.

They provide a certain stability in this market.
Thus I do think that even if they don't take it into account, it's not a big deal.

Plus I totally agree with the fact that , "present data cannot be verified" since this is a matter which is more personal and thus many of those people might even forget to report or might have passed away. Therefore the wallets cannot evaluate if the person did loose those coins or are they holding it for long term basis???

Yep and much like banks do with long inactive accounts BTC can agree to unlock addresses that have not made a withdrawal in 50-75-100 years.

Therefore the “lost” coins are not lost at all.

Thats the correct answer to the op’s question.

The long term untouched addresses can be emptied if an agreement is reached to do so.

It would be interesting to see if they do this and say in 2059 we will empty All untouched addresses from the year 2009.

There are many untouched addresses from 2009.

[wxa7115]

Right now Bitcoin market cap is about $316,001,197,150 for a bitcoin price of $17,029.88, doing the math ( not my forte ) that means they are taking into account 18 556 650 coins in existence.
It´s fairly known that way more than 10% of all bitcoins is forever lost.
So my questions:
Is there a more reliable market cap calculation out there? 
How does this affect evaluation,  for example when comparing bitcoin to gold.
What would be the best method of knowing how many coins still exist?

1st time post... so maybe a bit of a newbie kinda questionnaire.
stay cool good people of the internet 
 

No one really knows exactly how many coins are really lost and the 10% figure is just an estimation, second bitcoins are never lost forever, there are three options that could lead those coins back to the market, one is that the coins were not truly lost and the person remembers where he had his seed or his private keys.

The second method is as stated before a decision could be made about coins that have not moved for decades and decide those coins are lost and could be mined again, but I doubt this will ever happen as it would be incredibly polemic, and the third way is that by sheer luck someone could generate the very same address again and get access to those lost coins.

[Upgrade00]

Is there a more reliable market cap calculation out there?  

AFAIK, there is no reliable way to determine which bitcoins are lost. And if I'm to add, market capitalization is not really a vital metric which one should break sweat over. It's just figures which can be easily manipulated and does not determine the strength of a currency.
I regularly see some users use it as a means of determining which coin to invest in (checking ranking on tracking sites), this is quite a poor means of  assessing a good project.

How does this affect evaluation,  for example when comparing bitcoin to gold.

It doesn't really affect it. The supply of gold is also estimated as there is no way to account for every ounce of gold that has been mined.

What would be the best method of knowing how many coins still exist?

As mentioned considering coins which has not moved over a very long time frame (about 50-100 years) may be the best means, although not fully reliable as coins can be recovered if the private key is stored somewhere and can be discovered, even if the initial holder cannot access it anymore.

[mindrust]

The fault of your logic is, we will never exactly know how many bitcoins are lost forever.

Few months ago some of those "forever lost" coins from from their wallets.

[Inspectron]

By what you guys said it could then go 2 ways :
Follow Satoshi idea about lost bitcoins being almost a donation for the rest (like 10% lost so the remaining bitcoin owners would have an 11% gain ( in the total bitcoin stake whatever that is ))
Vote to have the lost bitcoins returned to the bitcoin pool (where i imagine the gains would be for miners, or maybe end up being a way for paying for the maintenance of the bitcoin network?!?)

thanks for the great contributions all

[gantez]

We actually don't know how much coins are lost. Also, they might not really be lost. We can be certain that there will never be more than 21 million BTC as that is a core characteristic of BTC. However I could see events that would put lost coins back into circulation, like philipma1957 is suggesting for example.

But in my mind I'm thinking since a coin is mined, it is already accounted for in blockchain which is also part of the total supply that reflects in bitcoin market cap. Therefore I think in me whether lost or not should be in account already.

[exstasie]

It's simple:

• Price is a function of supply and demand.
• Lost coins directly reduce available BTC supply, therefore they increase the price of BTC.
• Market cap is a function of price, therefore market cap already accounts for lost coins indirectly.

So there's no reason to calculate anything else. The number of lost coins can't actually be known. We can only know how they generally affect price and market cap.

[Globb0]

It doesn't of course!

This type of thing is on individuals.

and can only ever be an estimate

That said how much must be burned by now? wow no way to prove it ever!

[ReiMomo]

There are no such lost forever bitcoins it is only not doing any movement nor inactive in the circulation for a long period of time which can be retrieved and get back to the pool once agreed by all.

The market cap does not fix it may change from time to time depending on the price of bitcoin. It can be computed that is by multiplying the current price or on your preferred specific time to the total number of bitcoins that have already been mined including the lost forever coins.

Though the market cap can be changing the number of bitcoins that can be mined is predetermined to 21 million only and that will never change forever.

[Globb0]

There are no such lost forever bitcoins it is only not doing any movement nor inactive in the circulation for a long period of time which can be retrieved and get back to the pool once agreed by all.

The market cap does not fix it may change from time to time depending on the price of bitcoin. It can be computed that is by multiplying the current price or on your preferred specific time to the total number of bitcoins that have already been mined including the lost forever coins.

Though the market cap can be changing the number of bitcoins that can be mined is predetermined to 21 million only and that will never change forever.

Are you a person who thinks one day someone will crack all those lonley loose coins?

[dothebeats]

The metric market capitalization does not take into account the current lost coins, because that in itself is another metric that is yet to have some definite terms on what to consider 'lost', as there are addresses that contain coins from even 10 years ago that could possibly be 'active' in a sense that its owner still have its private keys. There is no one way of knowing just how much lost coins are there, really, and there isn't an exact math equation for that, too, if that's what you're looking for.

[Ryker1]

Well for me, we can do an actual calculation of bitcoins that should be in the market by knowing the number of coins that were already mined, -- and to know the exact market cap is by multiplying it by the current price. Everyone is correct here when they say that the lost bitcoins can still be recovered once agreed by all to bring it back into the pool but we cannot be certain on how many is the lost bitcoin must be recovered and ^[10%] is also speculation if the basis for the lost coin is no movement for a period of time. The market cap may still change since bitcoin's value is volatile but the total number of bitcoins that can be mined will never change and that is 21 million bitcoins.