how Bitcoin will deal with lost tokens?

[pawanjain]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

Consider it as burning of bitcoins for free  Yes, it does make bitcoin scarce since the number of bitcoins in circulation gets reduced.
Since the supply is now decreased this increases the price of bitcoin in the long term.
Since no particular entity controls bitcoin the lost bitcoins are forever lost and cannot be accessed anymore.

[adzino]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

The coins on the wallets are lost forever and there is no way to retrieve it unless someone recovers the private keys, which is almost impossible to do so. As more coins are lost, bitcoin becomes more scarce as the number of bitcoins that can be mined is capped to 21 million. Which means, bitcoin will become more valuable as more people loses their coins. Imagine how many coins are lost every day. If you combine wallets that had few satoshis and the owner didn't care about it since it was worthless back then, we probably might have thousands of bitcoin in total.

[nightxglow]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

The lost coins are.. well.. lost. Forever.
And indeed, the remaining ones will become increasingly scarce. Which is a good thing, since this makes them increasingly more valuable.
And you should not be too much worried about this, since bitcoin works with 8 digits after the decimal point, so the real total amount of coins is 2 100 000 000 000 000 (satoshi).

Woah, this is my first time learning that bitcoin has that much amount. I'm kinda wondering about that too actually, like what if more and more people lose their bitcoin, won't bitcoin become even more scarce? but after knowing that we have that many amount of bitcoin, i guess there's no need to worry. And what you stated is right, this is what will make bitcoin even more valuable, since it's limited, and become even more limited by the time people keep losing the coin, since there's no way we can get back bitcoin that we've lost already, gone forever.

[Silberman]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

The Bitcoin lost cannot be recovered at all if you don't have access to your wallets or say you lost private keys for your coins. It's not that someone else will find them and take advantage of your funds unlike fiat btc lost simply reduce the total supply of 21 million coins.We have list of dormant bitcoin address with thousands of Bitcoin in them but we can't say they are lost or not because they are not active from past few years.Some people like German programmer who lost his 7002 bitcoins which are worth more than $220 million.Many in the past also has done the same mistake as they were not aware that btc will cross high level prices soon.

This is not completely accurate, technically speaking no coins are completely lost forever, there is always the possibility that someone else at random generates the same address than the one that some other people generated and that has a lot of coins, this is incredibly unlikely, so unlikely that if you're waiting for something like this to happen it is better that you just play the lottery, but it can happen, which is why there is nothing to be done about it because even if some coins are lost by their owners there is always a small chance that someone else will eventually get them in the future.

[bounceback]

if bitcoin is lost due to forgetting the password or private key then the right way is to surrender and hope for a miracle to come to us, because we know how bitcoin works is not the same as conventional currencies which can reset passwords whenever we want.
As for the reduced supply, bitcoin prices will continue to set new records when there is a lot of demand.

[ShowOff]

There are a total of 18,684,393 bitcoin currently circulating in the market [data]which means there are 2,315,607 bitcoin locked in the wallet. Some bitcoins that are currently locked can still be activated if the owner manages to recover his lost wallet phrase, or it is possible that the number will continue to grow due to user error. If the wallet owner never inherit his bitcoin ownership, the bitcoin will remain locked and can no longer be transferred. That means the same as lost bitcoin.

[concept2]

Nothing happens to them. Once they have gone, they will go away forever. That makes bitcoin more precious overtime because less bitcoin appears for the circulation

However, if quantum computer is created, perhaps they will easily decode those missing bitcoin wallet and that does cause a huge impact on bitcoin. Moreover, those quantum machines probably gain a huge hash rate from mining which strongly affects the POW system.

[willoweb]

In my opinion, everything is simple and elementary - less bitcoins - less supply - higher price. And the value will grow as more and more bitcoins are mined. In addition, the digital economy does not stand still and more and more tools are gradually being introduced where you can use cryptocurrency as a means of payment. The loss of bitcoins is the private stories of individual holders, most often those people who at the beginning of this process did not attach much importance to the value of bitcoin before the price became high enough. You can recall the example of those very two pizzas sold for 10 thousand bitcoins.

[just_Alice]

Yes, but that's where the fun is, right? With people losing their Bitcoins the market will actually, in a way, become more stable, because those people, who were holding them could've succumbed to panic selling, for instance. Now, we can be sure that at least some holders will remain forever
While I actually feel sorry for people, who lost their wallets, generally and pragmatically speaking it's good.

[hulla]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system?
 

Nothing will happen to the coin, they will be among the total 21 million coins that will be ever mine but they will lose forever inside the wallet where they were sent to if the owner of the coin can't access the wallet.

If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

That's a finite number of coins in the Bitcoin ecosystem already and the lose coins will help the pump in price of Bitcoin market.
This is the reason why some people believe if Satoshi accesses the Bitcoin in the genesis wallet it may affect the price of the Bitcoin market.

[DrearyUrbanite]

This is essentially a serious deflationary aspect of Bitcoin. Not a nice one for those who lose access to their wallets but it is basically true. Every now and then somebody will definitely lose access or die and not leave the keys in an appropriate place for others to access the wallets afterwards.

There will never be a way to recover them. If there was a way I think that would simultaneously man Bitcoin has a problem.

[Bilgent]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

If someone is keeping their coins in their wallet and forgets the necessary info to get access, there is no way back from it. Those coins will be lost forever, mate.    There is no recovery option and that's why it's very important to keep private keys etc. in a safe and unforgettable place.

[veznata]

I suggest lost bitcoins to be allocated proportionally among all who hold bitcoins now 

[Silberman]

I suggest lost bitcoins to be allocated proportionally among all who hold bitcoins now 

It is never going to happen, to begin with what are lost coins? Coins that have not moved in a long time? That just means their owners probably did not saw any need to move those coins, we cannot distinguish between coins that have not moved and coins that are legitimately lost, also we cannot take the word of those that claim to have lost thousands of coins as the only way to confirm ownership of an address is by having access to the private keys and sign a message which is precisely what those that have lost their keys cannot do.

[DrearyUrbanite]

I suggest lost bitcoins to be allocated proportionally among all who hold bitcoins now 

It is never going to happen, to begin with what are lost coins? Coins that have not moved in a long time? That just means their owners probably did not saw any need to move those coins, we cannot distinguish between coins that have not moved and coins that are legitimately lost, also we cannot take the word of those that claim to have lost thousands of coins as the only way to confirm ownership of an address is by having access to the private keys and sign a message which is precisely what those that have lost their keys cannot do.

There was a report about lost coins a while ago. It is quite a significant amount of coins that is not accessible anymore, but as you say they don't know exactly how many coins are permanently lost and how many coins are just sleepers.

[udidrone]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

is that means less bitcoin which people will sell and then more demands cause bitcoin price increased? but about the coin, i think it will remain there same with other coins too. Because no one can access it means no one can't do anything with that lose coin.

[omone1]

What is lost is lost and gone forever except the owners are about to recover the wallet, otherwise they are now "audio" money, you may be able to see it but can't use it again.

[btc-room101]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

BIS-IMF created bitcoin, make no mistake they want to implement same system in crypto, all over the world, if you don't 'touch' your bank account yearly, the gov gets to steal your money, why not with bitcoin they ask?


Well today there are 10^3 coin-addresses with serious value

[ later we deal with the issue of how many satoshis could create how many unique addresses in theory ]

There are 10^77 private-keys possible, that is more than the number of electrons in the known universe, trust me its a big number.

Ergo 10^74 btc 'keys' are lost already, or maybe you can say they just haven't been found.

Then there are 300M, or 3*10^9 'used' addresses containing little value ( < 0.05 btc )

So in reality there are 10^68 lost keys; So lets say people forget their seed, or wallet-password say 1,000's a year, its still a drop in the bucket compared to the astronomic orhpan keys out there without any love

Seems to be a continuous scam that constantly comes up "Something ought to be done about 'lost coin'"; Of course the solution is have the GOV force all high-values addresses to be come public, and then black-list all addresses that don't have 100% KYC in a database on all high-value coins.

Then when somebody wants to spend their 'tainted' address they must plea to the IMF to release their address from the "no fly list"

The lost addresses the OP speaks of course, you or the GOV can't steal it, even if you declare it on your 'black-list', cuz you ain't got the private-key.

On the subject of scarcity, there is no scarcity of 'coins', each bitcoin is 100M satoshis, and there are 21M satoshis for now ( I think they'll bump the number later, why not? Its source code easy to modify all you need is +51% of the block-chain miners to run your software, China already has +67% )

So there are 100M satoshi per bitcoin, 21M bitcoin for now that be 10^8 * 21*10^6, so +2 Quadrillions satoshi

So 210*10^14 sats, now there are 300M coins ( addresses ) in use, this means you have 2.1*10^16 less 300M  = 2.09999997e+16

1.4285714285714286e-08, a less than a billionth of the available 'coins' have been used so far,

...

Of course in time, lots of these addresses/coins are unused and carry zero-balance.

Given that 99% of all BTC is held in 10K addresses, that's sort of where you look. From a GOV point of view, you focus on who holds +99% of the wealth, and of course we know its just a few people

IMHO the way GOV will handle this problem, is have a moratorium and force these 10k addresses to come forward and sign them with their KYC info, failure to, would then result in that address being black-listed.

For a privacy person, the only escape would be to sell that coin on the black market in China, for pennys on the dollar.

Of course some will say, then people will just 'mix', not true the exchanges have already been told to 'black-list' tainted or mixed coins.

...

How will bitcoin deal with lost 'tokens'? First of all there is NO such thing as token in BTC, that's an ethereum bullshit moniker. Even 'coin' in bitcoin doesn't mean anything, there are only addresses, that are hashed public-keys. Behind every public-key there is a secret private-key. If you know the private key, then you own the public-key, and its hashed address.

Bitcoin doesn't care. Its job is add transactions to the block-chain, if the transactions is approved then its posted. If the person making the transaction has the private-key, he can sign the transaction to prove to bitcoin that he is the owner. Bitcoin is only tasked with the tasks at hand. To build block-chains every ten minutes.

Now humans, they'er quite concerned with lost and/or orphan bitcoins ( addresses with value ), but likes been said above unless you have the private-key don't lose any sleep.

Certain criminals have proposed 'marking' unused say a year addresses as abandoned, then when the owner try's to do a transaction, he would have to pay to have it released, and this is where the criminal exchange loves this concept essentially its a tax for not spending your bitcoin. This is exactly what the new CBDC in CHina does, spend it or lose it.

[KaliLinux]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

I dont believe any thing could be done about it. Those are already lost as the way the system is designed, once you dont have access by way of whatever form you login then they are lost and I believe investors are more careful now with safety of login details however those will just contribute to reducing the actual number of active circulating supply of Bitcoin which is kinda good but in a sad way because those where peoples funds. 

[Reatim]

What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?

Well that's a possibility mate because all the coins that lost in tin air are gone forever as Blockchain wallet cannot be retrieved by any individuals.
So if we are a Noob and careless in handling all our coins and in future will Lose everything in accessing our wallets? then Yeah Bitcoin will totally Gone and maybe Altcoin will start to become the king and queen.

What is lost is lost and gone forever except the owners are about to recover the wallet, otherwise they are now "audio" money, you may be able to see it but can't use it again.

hard but true..