how can we know that a wallet is lost

[cafter]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

[bitmover]

but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

Some very early addresses like satoshi's are basically lost.

A part from those,  You cannot know for sure only by watching the blockchain. Even coins which never moved from 2012-13 may just be moved at anytime.

You would have to look at news website and things liker that , but that source isn't always reliable.

[KiaKia]

Assuming you have 1 Bitcoin in a wallet right now and you write down the recovery seed in a book and God forbids it, a fire breakout in your home, and all the book was burnt to ashes, will you tell the world you've lost your 1 BTC? Only a very limited number of people will know about your loss, maybe those who are close to you and knew that you are a Bitcoin holder. The fact is you are never going to have access to your Bitcoin again unless you can provide your recovery seed, in this case, your Bitcoin is lost forever.  In a wallet that no one has access to anymore.

Bitcoin has no burning feature if that's what you mean, in altcoins cases, you have to burn some supply to reduce the max supply, losing access to your coin is different from burning coins to reduce max supply.

Bitcoin max supply will remain at 21 million, even if 10million is lost it's not coming back, it is forever lost.

[Cryptomiles1]

I don't think by just scanning the address will guarantee you knowing that such wallet is lost or not but sometimes it could be that no transactions has occurred since store or for over several years. For instance, if a bitcoin was sent to an address for about 8 years ago and there was no output (sent out) and the only input (sent into) has been there such wallet may likely be considered to have lost access or owner is dead IMO, but I believe there may be other ways to detect wallet that have been lost access.

[CarnagexD]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

Since BTC has no central regulator, then of course there is also no central data that would provide there is no accurate way to keep track of this information. You can have an information probably through analysis of the blockchain and public data through blockchain.com or coinmarketCap.com but still, that won't make any sense. This won't ensure if it is truly lost based on its latest transactions.

Lost wallets or ledgers. I agree, scarcity is what creates its value. So protect yours.

[OmegaStarScream]

Aside from a few "burn" addresses:

- 1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr
- 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE
....

There's no way to know if funds are lost for sure. But according to Chainlysis, ~20% (or almost 4 million coins) are lost[1].

As for your suggestion about making a site, then I personally don't see the point because you can prove that you own an address by signing a message with your private keys, but there's no way to prove that you don't own an address. In other words, anyone can claim that they have lost their funds but there is no way to confirm if that's true or not.

[1] https://www.newsbtc.com/news/bitcoin/chainalysis-up-to/

[MainIbem]

From my understanding so far, there's no website to tell you the real facts about an address that have no access to, take a view from few people that have commented earlier. If you lost your details then is a no go area for you because is lost forever and everyone is liable for their key and seedphrase, that is why you need to backup in multiple devices maybe if you have no access to one the you may have access to the other in order to access your assets.

[lassdas]

Some very early addresses like satoshi's are basically lost.

In the sense that those coins will never be moved you're probably right,
I highly doubt that satoshi actually lost the keys though.

..but that source isn't always reliable.

All sources are, that's the problem.

Even if I tell you, address YXZ which holds thousands of coins is mine and I lost the key,
why would you believe me? I can't think of any way to prove that I'm not a liar.
If i had the key, I could just sign a msg to prove that it's my address, to prove the non-existance of a key is way harder.

[Z-tight]

but I believe there may be other ways to detect wallet that have been lost access.

I don't believe there is a way to know if BTC is lost, unless the owner declares that they have lost their keys and seed phrase and you choose to believe them, but if they lost it to another person, that means if it was stolen, then it does not mean the BTC is lost because the thief still has access to the funds and even if they may not have moved it for many years, they still can because they have the keys.

Some very early addresses like satoshi's are basically lost.

Can we be so sure that the BTC's in Satoshi's addresses are lost, maybe they still have the keys and do not want to move it because it will give them away that they are still alive and part of the community, they may move the coins later in the future.

[MainIbem]

but I believe there may be other ways to detect wallet that have been lost access.

I don't believe there is a way to know if BTC is lost, unless the owner declares that they have lost their keys and seed phrase, if they lost it to another person, that means if it was stolen, then it does not mean the BTC is lost because the thief still has access to the funds and even if they may not have moved it for many years, they still can because they have the keys.

Maybe someone would source out the website sooner but there's no guarantee that all information given might be 100 percent correct, just bitmover did say from his post above.
So in essence they have now added for total percentage of burning down from the total supply.

[Adbitco]

You would have to look at news website and things liker that , but that source isn't always reliable.

No one or news site that could give exact amount of bitcoin the owners have lost access to the wallet except some essential cases were the owners come online to air out the figures and also showcase his address before it could be recorded as stats otherwise they don't have tools for that findings.

[Plaguedeath]

Any coins belong to burn addresses are the 100% proof if the coins are lost.

Some people can say if the coins aren't move for at least 10+ years it can be said the coins are lost, but it's not entirely correct because the owner might don't want to move his coins because he don't feel if $69K isn't really high for him and he expect Bitcoin price could achieve more than this.

[seoincorporation]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

Some people already have a track of the lost wallets... But the fact that a wallet is lost doesn't mean it will be in limbo forever, some of the keys can be recovered in the future.

A good example is the satoshi coins. We are talking about 1 million bitcoins... and that's a big piece of the network if the total of coins is 21 millions. And here the issue is: We can't be sure those coins are lost. Some people think they are, som others are waiting for them to move.

[m2017]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

I would like to start by saying why do we need to know which wallets are lost forever and which are not? How can we use this knowledge? What is the benefit of knowing this? To subtract lost bitcoins from the total stock of bitcoins? What will change from this?

Technically, such a website will not be easy to implement due to the lack of complete reliable data on wallets. We will not be able to determine in any way which of the wallets has access, and which one doesn't. There is another curious moment. Today you may have access to your wallet, but tomorrow you may lose it.

In principle, you can add information about well-known wallets (like Nakamoto's wallet) that are lost, but there are few such wallets and, in principle, this is already known. I don't think it's worth building a website for.

[hosseinimr93]

Any coins belong to burn addresses are the 100% proof if the coins are lost.

There is no proof that coins sent to burn addresses have been lost. In theory, it's possible that someone already have the private key of such addresses or someone will be able to brute-force them in the future.
The only coins that are provably lost forever are those that haven't been claimed as block reward by miners and those that have been burnt using OP_return outputs.

[DaveF]

Outside of a few programmatic things (can't send due to the way the transaction was made) and some addresses there is no such thing as a lost wallet.
People can CLAIM that they don't have access, and that might even be true at the moment, but you never know what may turn up.
i.e., 'I lost my seed phrase' turns into, 8 years later. 'Oh there is is, it was in the file folder for the water heater, oops'

Attempting to find / create a list of lost or undependable wallets may be an interesting thought experiment. But it would be mostly pointless.

I have coins that I have not touched in more then a decade and am not even 100% the private key I have is good anymore. But it's such a small amount it's not worth the time to figure it out or destroy the collectable it's on.
Is that lost or unknown.

-Dave

[Fullcoinese]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

I'm not sure if it will be important for us to have and know. we can see transactions and some wallets holding Bitcoins. but we can't see if the intended wallet is lost or inaccessible.
all we can know is the remaining coins that can still be mined. and also the coins currently in circulation and traded. I myself am not really interested in a lost and inaccessible wallet.

[so98nn]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

In my case, I lost my ledger wallet while we were doing house shifting. The tiny thing got lost accidentally in the furniture back and was stuck there for 2 years and I did not even know about it. I was so scared about it but I had the mnemonic phrases stored and asked for help on the forum. I created an entire thread about it and got good support from the community as well.

Figured out how the ION Colman tool works and could be a good help when you lose your hardware wallet or software wallet. But the only rule is you should have your phrases stored properly.

With time we will definitely have lot of wallets lost in the deep cold and may not have chance of recovering back. This will definitely short the supply.

[Aikidoka]

there are many threads and news about people losing access to their wallets and forgetting or seed phrases,
and it's better for scarcity of bitcoin,  but how can we know or speculate that the wallet is lost, and it is out of the supply? is there any platform where we can find lost wallets, if no, then it's a good idea to start a website and list every lost wallets.

Determining whether a wallet has been lost can be difficult because you may not know who the owner is. Some people hold onto their BTC in their wallets without moving them for years. So, if you come across a wallet with funds from 2010, it's possible that the owner still has access to it but is holding onto their bitcoin. As a result, it's impossible to be 100% certain if a wallet is lost or not. Only cases where individuals confirm that they have lost their wallets would be reported in the news, and any other speculation would be just that - speculation..

[Little Mouse]

There's no way you can ever speculate correctly which coins are out of circulation. In fact, if someone acknowledges that they have lost coins, you can't verify that statement. That's how bitcoin works, that's the beauty. My keys, my coins. No one knows ever whether I have access or not.

Some very early addresses like satoshi's are basically lost.

That's a speculation. We don't know whether satoshi is dead or alive. We don't know whether satoshi has access to all this addresses or not. We don't know anything, we can only speculate.