What happens if all Bitcoin is lost?

[BitcoinQR]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

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[adaseb]

When bitcoin had little or no value. Many of it was lost. And it’s unrecoverable pretty much. Many threw out their hard drives or they just deleted the wallet.dat because it wasn’t worth anything and it’s gone forever.

I think that something like 2-3 million is lost and not recoverable. There is also satoshis stash which most likely will never be spent. It’s good because it keeps the supply lower.

[Cantsay]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

For a start, humanity will still be in existence and we will all still be functioning properly…

But on a more serious note; how do you propose all bitcoin to be lost? How is that going to be possible? You can’t just expect everyone to just wake up one day and realize that they can’t recall their secret phrases again and where they kept it has been destroyed with their phrases along side.

Try asking more realistic questions maybe then you’ll get an actual answer. Question like this won’t yield anything good for you.

[dzungmobile]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

When all bitcoin is mined, which will happen in 2140 if the network continues to be lively operated till that year, miners will have only one income source, transaction fee. This question is asked and answered many times, you can search and find past topics on it.

The second question, all bitcoin is lost, seems to be impossible. There are about 4 million bitcoin assumedly estimated to be lost but we never know an exact number for it.

I posted one thread on estimation of lost bitcoins that can be helpful for you.

I believe in future, with more expensive price, people will be more careful with storage, back up, recovery so that there wil be less and less bitcoin lost in coming years.

[Odohu]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

@stompix gave a detailed explanation on the future of Bitcoin as regards to when all Bitcoin have been mined. You can read that in this post.

On the other aspects of your post, I don't know what will make all the Bitcoin to be lost or are you referring to when the world will end? We actually have certain amount of Bitcoin that are reported to have been lost; those will remain lost.

[joeperry]

It's lost forever and there's no way to recover it. That's it. The Bitcoin has a limited supply and it's not like paper money that they can create unlimitedly. I think there's a lot of lost Bitcoin, as per my simple search on google, it stated that there's at least 13 Million Bitcoin that is lost right now it's worth 565 Billion USD, I'm really surprised when I found out about it. I was hoping that at least I could have 100 Bitcoins from those lost Bitcoins.

[pinggoki]

The miners will waste their time and effort doing all those mining and the world moves on, that's the only way that will happen when bitcoin is gone. Bitcoin doesn't have the expected impact yet because it's not as influential as we want it to be to the point that it's going to make waves in the economy of a lot of countries but if this was to happen when bitcoin's at the point where it's already influential to the economy and a lot of country have it as their secondary legal tender or maybe even their traded currency for the global market then we would see a more catastrophe happening.

[Hatchy]

Millions of Bitcoins have already been lost, mate. However, your question may not have a straightforward answer. If Bitcoin experiences widespread loss, it could affect its usability creating challenges for its practical use as a currency or store of value.
The idea of all Bitcoins being lost is unlikely, as it would require a widespread and simultaneous loss of private keys, which is highly impossible.

When all Bitcoin is mined, its price would likely become more stable, shifting its role from a store of value to a means of payment. At this point, Satoshi's original vision for Bitcoin as an alternative payment method could be realized. When Bitcoin was created, it was meant to serve as an alternative means of payment. Satoshi also foresaw people viewing it as a store of value for profit, leading to the implementation of the halving mechanism.

[Solosanz]

Can we just discuss a thing that currently happen or something that could happen in the near future? you're discuss a thing that could happen after 2140, everyone who still live right now were dead.

If someone can still able to mine Bitcoin, they will get new coins, not lost it!

I'm more worried what if Bitcoin fees is stuck at $50, making people to migrate to L2 and curious how secure the bridge is.

There's a similar question like what you asked: What happens if all humans were dead?

[Jegileman]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

A bitcoin that is lost cannot be recoverable and it’s gone forever. All the people that have lost their wallet private keys or seed phrase cannot have access to their funds again to send those bitcoins out. They will remain dormant there forever. Unless you have another meaning to what you mean by when all bitcoin is lost, all bitcoin cannot be lost but some of them and those are already lost now. I don’t think much will be lost even in the future since everyone knows the value of bitcoin and would keep their wallet address safe.

[bocyaj]

When bitcoin had little or no value. Many of it was lost. And it’s unrecoverable pretty much. Many threw out their hard drives or they just deleted the wallet.dat because it wasn’t worth anything and it’s gone forever.

I think that something like 2-3 million is lost and not recoverable. There is also satoshis stash which most likely will never be spent. It’s good because it keeps the supply lower.

This was the expected one from the beginning,many people say the bitcoin will end and become the zero dollar.But still the decade was passed,the survival of the bitcoin was still existing.So no need to worry about the future of the bitcoin,because the bitcoin had the better future.The early adoption of the bitcoin will give us more returns in the bitcoin trade.Many of us from the beginning in the forum and come across the value of 3k-4k in the price of bitcoin.But we all sell the earning bitcoin at the cheapest price.Now we keep regret for the price of bitcoin around 42-43k dollars.

Can we just discuss a thing that currently happen or something that could happen in the near future? you're discuss a thing that could happen after 2140, everyone who still live right now were dead.

If someone can still able to mine Bitcoin, they will get new coins, not lost it!

I'm more worried what if Bitcoin fees is stuck at $50, making people to migrate to L2 and curious how secure the bridge is.

There's a similar question like what you asked: What happens if all humans were dead?

We have the life span of 60-80 years with the current generation and food habits.So if we discuss for the 2040-2050 is enough,if you are with the age of 30 in 2050 you will attain 57 years.So the survival of bitcoin may extend beyond the 2050 with the huge value like 400k dollars.

[knowngunman]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

Simple answer to your question is, nothing will happen if all Bitcoin is mined and lost. If there was no Bitcoin left, there would be nothing to trade and the value of Bitcoin would probably go to zero.

But I'm curious to know what makes you think of this scenario knowing that the last mining of Bitcoin is something that's expected to happen around the year 2140 and for the entire Bitcoin to lost can be possible in just one way. This could happen if people forget their private keys or lose access to their wallets. How could you imagining everyone forgot their private keys including you? Not likely possible to happen.

For the benefit of possibility and in case it happens, the crypto market would likely crash because without Bitcoin, the entire industry would be in turmoil. This would affect not only people who hold crypto but also the companies that rely on the technology to operate.

[Assface16678]

What do you mean by lost? Lost in value or lost as in the bitcoin is lost because of sending in the wrong address? Well, if its about lost in value, well, let's take, for example, what happened in other coins. Of course, bitcoin will only lose its value if no more investors are coming in or no circulation is happening in the market, meaning many investors sell their bitcoin and more and more supply of bitcoin and low demands mean the price will drop. That's when the value of bitcoin will be lost, and based on the current state of bitcoin, I find hard to imagine that it will lose its value.

About the loss of bitcoin due to uncertainty, if a bitcoin wallet gets thrown or is lost, then all of bitcoin will be like that. I don't think it is possible because, remember, there is still a lot of unmined bitcoin. Even if a lot of bitcoin has been lost, it is still to be mined and circulated in the market.

[bettercrypto]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

Can you please clarify what you mean by Bitcoin is lost? What do you want to point out—that all 21 million supplies have been used? Is this what you want to say? Well, in that matter, nothing has really happened and nobody knows the future.

Or maybe you mean to say that the other reason for the loss is that we lost Bitcoin? Is that so? If a large amount of money is lost, it hurts our hearts emotionally.

[Steph.A]

Well it's statically as improbable as every person on earth loosing his credit card overnight, so don't worry about bitcoin loss. Lesser availability of bitcoin would mean it's value actually going up. It's more of the demand and volume of transactions that matters as said in some previous posts.

[tabas]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

This isn't a new question but again if you can't find the other threads that deals about this question about mining all Bitcoin and then all of them lost, then some opinions are here for you. First, if all Bitcoins are mined we're not alive by that time I can guarantee you that. With all of the stress that this time of living, we're expected to live lesser than the older ones. And should we say that all Bitcoins are mined, transactions will continue and miners will still do the same thing but they'll mine to confirm transactions. If all bitcoin is lost? how it is going to happen? I have never thought of that all including all of the holders unless some catastrophic that will deplete human beings so as the network will be gone.

[Learn Bitcoin]

What would happen if all Bitcoin is mined and all Bitcoin is lost?

LOL. That is a useless unnecessary question. This is never going to happen. Even if it happens, You and I won't be there to see it. If all Bitcoin is mined and then all are lost somehow, then there will be another Bitcoin or a project like Bitcoin. According to the internet, there are 71 million Bitcoin users and there are 19.58 Million Bitcoin on supply. What makes you think that 71 million people will lose their backup of their wallet? isn't it absurd to think what is not going to happen?

[btc78]

First of all Bitcoin will not be lost if it's all mined mining Bitcoin is just the process of creating even more coins, one of mining's many purposes but anyway let's say that all Bitcoin was mined, well then simply enough there will be no more new Bitcoin right after that it's just gonna be a fixed supply from then one the concept of lost Bitcoin is just based on the users if one had lost access to their wallets then now they hold Bitcoin that will be no more participating in the market

[Bureau]

What you are asking is a hypothetical situation that will never happen unless the world gets destroyed. It is not that easy to lose all Bitcoin as those who have it will know how to protect it. That does not mean that Bitcoin is not being lost, they are still and it is the responsibility of the owner to keep them safe. If someone losses it then they are in flat and they cannot blame anyone else.

In case such a hypothetical situation arises in the future as we cannot predict the future then other cryptocurrencies will dominate. I think the next big crypto according to the market cap is Ethereum and it will dominate the crypto world. The value of it will increase exponentially due it is highest number of pairing with Bitcoin.

[m2017]

When bitcoin had little or no value. Many of it was lost. And it’s unrecoverable pretty much. Many threw out their hard drives or they just deleted the wallet.dat because it wasn’t worth anything and it’s gone forever.

As for forever, it is not yet known. Some users who threw their hard drives into a landfill want to organize a search by sorting the entire city landfill, and who knows, maybe they will succeed (if the city administration gives the go-ahead). Some of the lost coins may be returned. There have been cases where old hard drives were found or lost wallets were accessed. What is impossible now may become possible in the future. For example, thanks to new technologies that will allow to return lost forever bitcoins.

I think that something like 2-3 million is lost and not recoverable. There is also satoshis stash which most likely will never be spent. It’s good because it keeps the supply lower.

I don't think it's good, but it happened. Moreover, some bitcoin will be lost by users. For sure.

You still didn’t answer OP’s question. Therefore, I will do it. Theoretically, all bitcoin could be lost, but practically, I think this is impossible, thanks to decentralization. That is, bitcoin is present in a very large number of people (in varying quantities). Even if there is only 1 BTC left, then even then it will be possible to split it into small parts and continue to use it, but the price, I think, will already be exorbitant. If the BTC-network is ever destined to cease to exist, it will not be because all the bitcoins are lost. It definitely is.