64% of Bitcoins are never used and will never be used

[KingsDen]

I was searching the forum and I stumbled on a message on this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5046765.msg46681163#msg46681163
By MindanaOne about 40 facts about BTC.

One of the facts said that " 64% of Bitcoins are never used and will never be used"
This got me confused.
I need clarification.
Thanks!

[tranthidung]

One of the facts said that " 64% of Bitcoins are never used and will never be used"

Some copycats.
Here are 40 interesting facts about Bitcoin you don’t know! (medium)
Here are 40 interesting facts about Bitcoin you do not know! (smartassets[dot]one)
What is the original source, I don't know but assume that topic is a original source.

Because all of three sources don't present any explanation on that number, I dig more and find another one Indisputable facts that will help you understand Bitcoin better

1. The majority of mined Bitcoins have never been used
Roughly, 17 million bitcoins, which is the strongest and most popular cryptocurrency in the world, have been mined or created, so far. Of that number, 64% have never been used.

A large portion of these bitcoins is likely lost forever because, among other reasons, owners misplaced their “wallet keys”. So, their bitcoins will never be used. More about that later.

All in all, although there are 21 million bitcoins in the circulation for miners to dig them out, the actual number out there is probably millions less than that.

Look!

64% of 17 million Bitcoin would be 10,880,000 BTC was lost forever. I have never read any on-chain analysis about more than 10 M BTC lost.
Accept the fact that any number is only estimation with bias (serious or minor). The potentially lost Bitcoin that I know is about 4 M or 5 M, not 10 M guys.

Estimates are based on inactive UTXOs (with years of inactive) but you knows not all such inactive UTXOs represent for lost Bitcoin.

• Investigate, assess news. Don't simply read and make wrong decisions
• I invite you to read my topic and get a bit more details.

[o_e_l_e_o]

One of the facts said that " 64% of Bitcoins are never used and will never be used"

Complete nonsense, and can be proven to be false simply by looking at the block rewards which have been spent, using a link such as this one: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/outputs?q=is_from_coinbase(true),is_spent(true)

Hell, F2Pool alone have mined and moved over 5 million bitcoin through a single address (https://mempool.space/address/1KFHE7w8BhaENAswwryaoccDb6qcT6DbYY), which would account for almost all of the "36%" of bitcoin which have been used, which again, is obviously complete nonsense.

As tranthidung pointed out, most estimates suggest somewhere in the region of 4 million bitcoin are now lost (although that is definitely not the same as "never being used"), but these estimates are all based on a lot of complete guesswork and are likely highly inaccurate. The bitcoin which have been provably lost number in the hundreds, not the millions.

[KingsDen]

@tranthidung, I have gone through your thread, I confess it is informative. As you and @o_e_l_e_o rightly stated that some of the figures are exaggerated and hence should be investigated before relying on them. I think that should be a system that punish wrong information as we have the one that punishes plagarist.

[mk4]

Quick note: The data being false/inaccurate aside — Bitcoin is not only being used for payments, but also as a store of value. So if it's the case that some bitcoin is stagnant in a certain address, it doesn't necessarily mean it's not being used. It may be the case that the owner is "using" the bitcoin by letting it appreciate in the long term.

[tranthidung]

I think that should be a system that punish wrong information as we have the one that punishes plagarist.

The world should give us freedom of speech that is one of very basic rights for human.

You know, the most basic and important thing for human is a right to think different. Not think, but think different. And from which, write or say different with what you think of.

Everyone can write anything they want and say it is right but as a reader, you have to assess given information and decide to accept it or ignore it.
About the forum, theymos want to give as much freedom as possible.

bitcointalk.org is not a normal for-profit company. Even if banning iamnotback somehow stopped all future ad revenue, he would still be banned, since his rule-breaking is disrupting the forum's mission of hosting free discussion of Bitcoin and related topics. (As explained above, "free discussion" is not "unmoderated discussion".)

[Darker45]

One of the facts said that " 64% of Bitcoins are never used and will never be used"

This shouldn't be included because this is not a fact. A fact is something which could be proven to be true. Now, what proof do we have to support this claim? How could we even try to prove it?

At the most, this is nothing but a very rough estimate which is more likely wrong rather than right. It is one thing to prove that 64% of the issued Bitcoin has never been used and another that this figure will never be used in the future. There's a big assumption right there which is beyond proof.

[Oshosondy]

This shouldn't be included because this is not a fact. A fact is something which could be proven to be true. Now, what proof do we have to support this claim? How could we even try to prove it?

I also see this not to be true, we do not have even rough estimates of lost bitcoin, there can only be estimates of bitcoin that are domant and not used for over a long time period, but what if many if the coins are not spent but just domant for hires to inherit it, or what if the person is still waiting for increase price so he can sell at certain price? You are right, this is not correct at all because we do not know the actual amount of bitcoin that are lost and not accessible again.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think that should be a system that punish wrong information as we have the one that punishes plagarist.

I don't think that would be helpful. Lots of people learn by making mistakes, and most discussions would lead nowhere if everyone agreed about everything. There are always going to be people to point out mistakes or clarify misunderstandings.

How could we even try to prove it?

You could prove that 64% of bitcoin have never been used by showing all the block reward coinbase transactions which are unspent. As I have shown above, there is nowhere near this number of unspent block rewards, so this statement is demonstrably false.

Any claims regarding what proportion of bitcoin will never be used again in the future is obviously complete guesswork, as no one can predict what other people are going to do with their bitcoin.

[Porfirii]

64% of 17 million Bitcoin would be 10,880,000 BTC was lost forever. I have never read any on-chain analysis about more than 10 M BTC lost.
Accept the fact that any number is only estimation with bias (serious or minor). The potentially lost Bitcoin that I know is about 4 M or 5 M, not 10 M guys.

Without further research, 64% (way more than the half of all the bitcoins minted ever, and almost half of the total supply) seems very inflated to me, too.

Anyway, 4 M or 5 M is still an insane amount, and it is very possible taking into account the way it has been unfolding through the years, because those 100.000 Bitcoins someone could own back in 2010 that were worth almost zero seemed to deserve little to no attention. Although it is not one of the best episodes, the one on Bitcoin in Big Bang Theory explains that.

So, when economists talk about the 21M limited supply, I don't know if they are aware about this fact, which makes BTC even more deflationary.

[tranthidung]

Without further research, 64% (way more than the half of all the bitcoins minted ever, and almost half of the total supply) seems very inflated to me, too.

Anyway, 4 M or 5 M is still an insane amount, and it is very possible taking into account the way it has been unfolding through the years

In another article with given data from Glassnode [1], you see the potentially lost Bitcoin is about 20% of circulating supply so it would be 3.74 M bitcoin if you use today circulating supply. In fact, that data is in January this year, months ago. The highlighted part is important and people tend to feel crazy when som very old bitcoin is moving.  

Double check, it is around 19% of 7-years⁺ inactive UTXO, according to https://unchained-capital.com/hodlwaves/

[1] $7 Billion “Lost” and HODLed Bitcoin Found Since Start of Bull Run

But some Bitcoin will be lost forever: around 20% of the current supply—or at today’s price, around $100 billion of the currency.

But as Glassnode’s data shows, lots of Bitcoin is reappearing.

[RapTarX]

64%? I doubt. Few bitcoins which have been minted at the beginning, might be not used/moved. But 64% seems quite high although I don’t have any data in my hand. However, the thread is from 2018 but recently we have seen 3x peak of the previous ATH and in this time, many unused bitcoin have been moved.

[DooMAD]

I can only assume that somewhere along the line they lost a decimal place, heh.  If they had said 6.4%, it actually sounds quite reasonable.  Perhaps in their race to publish content, they didn't proofread it?

[jrrsparkles]

If coins are staying in an address for very long times doesn't means lost, why not we consider it is on the strong hands who are waiting for the $1 million mark per bitcoin.

[Jet Cash]

The quoted post shows a lack of understanding of "use". My Bitcoins are a store of wealth, and that is a valid use. I have a bronze statue,and it just sits on a shelf to be appreciated - that is another valid use. I have banknotes in my wallet, and I spend those, that is another very limited use.

[hatshepsut93]

This sounds like just some FUD, like they are trying to say "look, no one uses Bitcoin, so it's gonna be dead soon". It should be clear to everyone, even to newbies that this number is completely bullshit. You should know that fundamentally there's no good way to count how many coins were lost ,aside from provably burned coins, which are a tiny minority, so don't believe in any "coins lost" statistics as a strong fact.

[Smartvirus]

This might be a fact but, it could only be a fact for a while. I say this because, hodlibg seems to be the way to go about not just bitcoin but for most crypto investment at the moment but, is it always going to be like that always? That's a question for the future though but, I think a time will come when, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to hodl bitcoin and now isn't that time. So, until that time comes, the 64% unused theory would continue to be a fact for sure.
This goals the far length to telling us how much bitcoin and cryptos have delayed from its original purpose but then, its still in line as a n investment. We've still got that right.