Lost Bitcoin

[hhatton93]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

[1714603006]

1714603006

[OmegaStarScream]

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more.  Think of it as a donation to everyone.

[Zaguru12]

No there is nothing that will actually be done as of now to get those lost coins. As satoshi said earlier

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more.  Think of it as a donation to everyone.

So basically there is no plan to review anything on that. But come to think of it what does lost coins mean to you and how do you get those numbers because they vary and reason been that not all assumed coins said to be lost are actually lost except maybe locked coins that can never be spend (op-Return outputs)
. If not some of these coins are just coins left off and not yet moved or lost private key which can still be spent when seeing so they don’t count as lost coins

[eye-con]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

There is no protocol as that. Once Bitcoin is lost, it is gone forever. It cannot be recovered or reintroduced into the market's circulating supply. Any efforts to replace lost Bitcoin through a protocol or update is impossible, besides it would compromise the fundamental nature of the currency.

[MusaMohamed]

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

If there is a consensus to replace lost bitcoins, we will no longer have 21M bitcoins but will possibly be 25M bitcoins and more and more and more.

It will be like central banks print more fiat currencies to create inflation and cause decrease of purchasing power. Do you want to see Bitcoin has decreasing purchasing power?

I believe you won't want it.

What about the lost BTC?. Another topic on this created 7 days ago.

[Hyphen(-)]

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

You called them lost coin, then why returning them?

If these Bitcoins should be returned, then it is not a decentralized system again.
Who is returning the coins?

The main problem here is that people that people that lost the coin had already lost it forever, if they are sending Bitcoin back, which wallets are they sending to, is the sending address or the receiving address?

The idea of not returning lost Bitcoins is good and has save a lot.
And mind you, any one that claim to recover lost Bitcoins to you is a scammer.

[Charles-Tim]

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

So that thieves (who are not the actual owners of the coins) should be claiming lost coins?

They should prove with their private keys that they are the owners.

You can not know the exact number of bitcoin that are lost because you can not say all coins that are not moved to another address are lost. Or which methodology did you use to arrive at 4 to 6 million BTC to have been lost?

[hZti]

Lost coins in theory are like a donation to the other bitcoin holders, but since nobody knows what coins are lost I think there is not rally a impact at this moment. The only coins that are really lost are OP_Return coins that were burned.
People for example always claim that around 1 million satoshi coins are lost. However you can never be sure of those coins would at one point move again and suddenly be sold. So I think because of this risk those "lost" coins are not really a push for the price.

[Upgrade00]

If someone has lost bitcoins they cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that they own the address the bitcoins are in. The ultimate proof of ownership is the private keys of a wallet, and if you can't access a wallet you don't know the private keys, meaning there is no foolproof way to return lost coins to the last original owner.

Simply adding new coins into circulation to replace supposed lost coins is a terrible idea as it causes a supply shock and removes the confidence people have in Bitcoin to follow the already existing protocol.
Question would be what next would warrant thousands or millions of coins to be brought out if thin air?

[ImThour]

As OmegaStarScream quoted, if the number of Bitcoin you mentioned are actually lost, they are out of the ecosystem. No longer will be sold on any exchange or be traded with real money.
Making the Circulating Supply of Bitcoin from 19.63M to 14M. If there was a way to burn those, then it will surely create a big supply shock as it's almost 25% of Total Supply.

[Hamza2424]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

Seems like this topic was already discussed a couple of days ago, and it was in the same format as well. Anyway for the answer I would say it's a + point that lost ones are lost forever. It will directly help in price appreciation with the demand and supply principle. Maybe in the future somehow if needed the lost coins can be taken care of but I'm sure the community will refuse any such proposal and I'm with this that there's no need of recovering the coins.

[Lucius]

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone?
~snip~

Who says that's true? The methodology used by various "analysts" to determine how much BTC was lost was (and probably still is) saying "this BTC hasn't moved in x years and we assume it's lost". Of course, that doesn't make much sense when we know that from time to time there are transactions with coins that haven't moved in more than 10 years.

[ItsaWhale]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

When people lost bitcoin its bad for them but good for the community as there are less Amount circulating around and the price go upper
E.g if all people want to cashout bitcoin , there will still be Value on them due to high lost amount that cant be sold or cashout for real money  
so the Bitcoin Supply is at a current level of 19.63M -4-6 M  is around 25% of the amount

I dont think that there will ever be such an update as its impossible to know if one person is Holding those BTC or have lost them !

[hosseinimr93]

It may worth mentioning that there is no proof that 4-6 millions bitcoin have been lost. All you have read are only estimations.


The only coins that have been provably lost are as following.

• Coins that have been burned by creating OP_RETURN outputs
• Coins that were not claimed by miners when finding a block
• Coins that were lost due to coinbase transactions having the same hash.

[goldkingcoiner]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

All the lost Bitcoin only mean a lower maximum supply. That causes the vaue of Bitcoin to go up. Less supply and more demand is just what we need. In fact, this will continue happening and Bitcoin value will continue rising. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Think of it this way: If a Bitcoiner loses his coins because they died or lost access to their wallet, all hodlers receive a kind of inheritence, automatically.

Is that not a great thing?

We should not change anything about this.

[apogio]

Just like everyone, technically coins sent to addresses of which nobody knows the private key that created them, doesn't mean they are gone forever. There is always a chance (close to 0), that someone may find the necessary key to unlock the coins on these addresses.

• Coins that were lost due to coinbase transactions having the same hash.

Has this ever happened? Is there an example of such a case?

[hosseinimr93]

• Coins that were lost due to coinbase transactions having the same hash.

Has this ever happened? Is there an example of such a case?

Yes, there have been two cases.

The coinbase transaction in block number 91722 has the same hash as coinbase transaction in block number 91880 and the coinbase transaction in block number 91812 has the same hash as coinbase transaction in block number 91842.
The bug made coins generated in blocks number 91722 and 91812 unspendable and was fixed with implementing BIP30 and BIP34.

[thecodebear]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

1. It's not 4-6 million, more like 2-3 million probably. Also impossible to know exactly how many have been "lost".

2. No, they still exist, people have just lost their keys. No reason to replace them. "Replacing" them would mean changing the 21 million supply limit, which is one of the fundamental features of Bitcoin. Furthermore it would require a hard fork to change the protocol. There are only 21 million bitcoin that will ever exist. EVER, period. Extra Bitcoin are not made when someone loses their keys.

3. That's not how Bitcoin works. Heck, that's not how any currency works. If you lose a $5 bill do you tell the central bank to print an extra $5? No.


Also there was just a thread a couple weeks on here where someone proposed the same thing and people endlessly pointed out why its a terrible idea and would never happen anyway.

[Cookdata]

Yo,

So apparently there's like 4-6 million bitcoin that are lost and gone? Just curious if there was any ideas or plans to update the protocol to replace the lost bitcoins if there was a consensus, if that is even possible.

Do you really know and understand Bitcoin that much because this question looks like elementary kind for question anyone can ask about Bitcoin because it's look dummy.

Firstly, you need to know that Bitcoin protocol related to addictional coin minting is not happening anytime in the next 100 years, the supply is fixed and as far as.the community is concern, the 21 million will remained until the total 21 million is no longer available as subsidy for miner, we have 1.4 million Bitcoin remain to be mined which is going to happen until 29 more halving us done.

Nobody is sending bitcoin to anyone that lost there Bitcoin and I don't know where you got that stats from but even if they are going to do that(zero your mind, it's not happening), how do you think they going to do that? Send bitcoin to already wallet address they can't accept or what? Or they will come forward to identify them, that's another dumb thing to do, your idea is a baby idea, doesn't make sense.

[bobbybkk]

Lost coins ??

There are plenty of people holding likely millions of Bitcoins with no intention to sell : HODL or so......

so if a person is doing this or if he lost his private keys, in both cases the Bitcoins are for an extended period out of circulation.......

So in my view no point worrying about "Lost Bitcoin"