Risk of holding bitcoin forever

[Outhue]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Their fate will surely be similar if they can't protect their recovery seeds very well, there are many old investors who held their Bitcoin forany years and today they still have access to their Bitcoin, we have seen series of old wallets from years ago getting active again after many thought that they are lost or the owner died.

Human error is to be blamed for this type of losses.

[Awaklara]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

I'm not sure about holding forever. I mean, if you invest, your goal is certainly to make a profit. You have a target price you want to reach. Why should we hold forever? 
Even if we buy Bitcoin for use without an investment plan, I think you probably use your wallet quite often, so you might not forget the password. 
For now, I believe more investors are aware of Bitcoin ownership or investments built over a long period. Likewise, with the awareness of storing wallet access details, it’s definitely not easy to forget or carelessly place recovery seeds.

[Kelward]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Anybody who is careless about their wallet security is at risk of losing their Bitcoin forever, it doesn't matter if you created your wallet today or you are among the early adopters when you lose your private keys, your seed phrase your coins are at risk of being gone forever. We are luckier than the early buyers because we are better informed about how to protect our seed phrase, I believe that some of them that took the security of their wallet with laxity are regretting it today. It is very painful that you can monitor the progress of your coins on the Blockchain but you can never get access to it, I have the experience, I don't bother to check what the BTC is worth because it's very painful.

[Olotu20]

I think that, you are trying to mix things up here there is a clear difference of those who had lost their Bitcoin due to the fact that, they can't access their wallets as a result of like not having there private keys with people who are not willing to spend their Bitcoin now. For reasons best known to them. The two are not thesame and there is no risk for those who are hodling for the sake of tomorrow and is unwilling to spend their Bitcoin now.

[TokenTikas]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

People who have the mindset to hold Bitcoin for a long time always make sure they keep their wallet password and seed phrase in a safe place. Forgetting is something that can happen to anyone but if it is properly stored in a secure location, it becomes easier to remember and use it later when needed.

The important thing is that in most cases, nobody really plans to hold bitcoin forever, because people mainly invest in bitcoin for profit. I personally feel that holding bitcoin forever does not really make much sense. Still, I feel sorry for those who held bitcoin for a long time, forgot their password and ended up losing their money. That is why, whether the investment is small or big, it is always wise to properly keep the seed phrase and password in a safe place.

[m2017]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Any investment is aimed at making a profit: buying now to sell later for a higher profit. Does holding bitcoin forever satisfy these goals? Of course not. It's no better than wasted money.

In my opinion, bitcoin, as a financial instrument, should be used and perform specific functions, not sit idle in wallets forever:
- If BTC is used as a means of payment, it should be used for buying and selling goods and services.
- If BTC is used as an investment instrument, it should be bought and sold for a profit.
- If BTC is held in a wallet forever, what's the point? Or benefit? Perhaps to reduce the supply of BTC in circulation to increase its value. But this is such a bad use, because this is not what Satoshi created it for.

[knowngunman]

If password isn't strong enough, you might regain access to those coins in a few years, and by then their value will be greater than spending them now. Keeping your files safe is essential, and losing your password alone doesn't mean your coins are lost forever. awareness is higher than in the past, and Bitcoin's value makes considering multiple wallet copies a necessity.

Password is not the issue here. Op probably referred to seed phrase as password in his post but it's not the usual password he's talking about. If it's only about a wallet password, you can not lose your coins simply for forgetting the password. There are several ways you recover/reset your password through email or other means but you don't even need to stress yourself doing all that if you still have your seed phrase back up elsewhere. You can choose to reset your password or abandon that wallet to get a new one and then import your previous wallet and your coin will be intact.

In my opinion, bitcoin, as a financial instrument, should be used and perform specific functions, not sit idle in wallets forever:
- If BTC is used as a means of payment, it should be used for buying and selling goods and services.
- If BTC is used as an investment instrument, it should be bought and sold for a profit.
- If BTC is held in a wallet forever, what's the point? Or benefit? Perhaps to reduce the supply of BTC in circulation to increase its value. But this is such a bad use, because this is not what Satoshi created it for.

But Satoshi hasn't spent a dime coin from the wallet linked to him 

[Dareo]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Those who lost their passwords in the beginning actually entered a time when no one was serious about the value of Bitcoin. So they didn't think much about security, backups, Today's investors are not there, now everyone is much more aware of seed phrases, hardware wallets and multiple backups. Long term holding itself is not a problem, the problem is access management, If you keep a proper backup, leave recovery instructions with someone trusted, then the risk of losing is greatly reduced. On the contrary those who make mistakes while trading repeatedly often lose more. But yes being your own bank in Bitcoin also means your own responsibility. There is no room for blame if you make a mistake here.

[Webetcoins]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

I could'nt know, the newbies are searching through the data available for them is even more than before, and above of all newbies have AI bots that can guide them from zero to advance and they don't even have to waste a single minute. They can ask ChatGPT or Claude, what is and how to start without losing anything to scammers or to human errors that normally occur in reality. And the results will be good and detailed.

We only have to read thorougly and give time and at the end of the month we will know almost everything that we need to know in order to survive here without risk of losing. Actually to understand the risk alone of losing like this, takes only 1 day or one article reading so it is not a lot of work to do.

I did not think about AI, you are right if you really want to learn more about anything, you can use AI and could probably get a good superficial knowledge about it. It would not be healthy because AI could be wrong too, but at least on the basics of it it would be a good idea to learn more about it.

I know that it is not going to be easy and we are seeing this be a bit difficult and different but at the same time we should be able to make as much money from this as possible by learning smartly using it very well.

[Darker45]

It was because majority of them don't think too much about backing up their seed phrases or password because back in the days bitcoin was not as valuable as now.

Right now everybody is backing up their seed phrases and having multiple hardware wallets. They are also keep monitoring their bitcoin holding.

It is starkly different compared to before and people have been more conscious about self custody more than ever, those stories also taught most of us lessons about the importance of backing up seed phrases.

Yeah, it's probably Bitcoin's low value which made them careless about backups. So, in a way, they're not really hodlers because it wasn't their intention to hodl them. They didn't necessarily keep their coins because they believed Bitcoin would become big in the future. They have coins stuck in their wallets because they probably underestimated the potential of Bitcoin.

However, even myself have already forgotten where I put some copies of my backups. To think that I've only hidden them less than a decade ago in a small room. What more after 20, 30, 40 years? I guess we should regularly check our backups, whether they're still there and legible.

[As-Soon-As]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

It is your responsibility to keep the wallet key secure in the wallet you are depositing Bitcoin in. So as long as you can keep your wallet key secure, your Bitcoin investment will be sustainable, if you keep your wallet key randomly then it is normal that you will have bad luck. So seriously, keep your wallet key secure, holding Bitcoin for a long time will definitely generate a lot of benefits for you.

[kotajikikox]

‘Forever’ means different for each of us. Forever might mean a lifetime to some, but only 10 years to some. We have different goals so the risks may be different as well and the amount could alter the level of risks too.

[bitbollo]

I would see as a completely different way, because nowadays we know the value economical and... what happens. You will care differently of something that can have such increase or in general can become enough powerful.

The only thing that always as seen a "must" has been to not use third parties like exchange or lending centralized services for storing coins (of course... not used as a wallet for hodling).
We have seen many tutorials even "machines" - (hardwallet) for holding bitcoin. One of the first "hurdles" that I find for using bitcoin in early times was the ability to access to wallets/exchanges/ coins incuding tutorials .... it's evident today there are many many more resources.
The risk of "losing coins" as before has been reduced to the lowest limit

[Z-tight]

I don't know why you believe that there are people who want to hold BTC forever. It makes sense to say you'd always own some BTC, just as you'd probably always own real estate or stocks if you are involved with these assets.

However, holding forever almost means you do not plan to do anything with your coins, but if you'd always own BTC, i would take it to mean you're never going to sell all of your BTC, i wouldn't. So you'd sell and spend some along the way, but BTC would always form a part of your portfolio, which makes a lot of sense.

[Royal Cap]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

I think back then almost no one took the value of Bitcoin seriously, so there was no concern about security. Now the situation is totally different, Now everyone knows what the seed phrase means that is real access and then backups, hardware wallets and just keeping them in a separate safe place is so much more common, however it is not enough if you just keep the key safe, you also need to have a long term holding mentality. The big challenge now is to sell yourself during the middle of the market fluctuations. Those who forgot before, were in fact accidental holders, so they survived the volatility.

[Olatundespo]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Some investors who bought Bitcoin in the early days of Bitcoin did not pay much attention to storing the seed phrase. They thought that their assets were stored on their devices and were secured by a pass key and did not even feel the need to write it down. They knew that no Bitcoin could be recovered without a lost security key and seed phrase, but they did not pay much attention. Since the value of Bitcoin was low at that time many investors may not have paid much attention to it.

Currently there is a conscious among wallet holders because they understand the importance of the asset and know about the history of losing Bitcoin in the past and they install a wallet on their device and write down the seed phrase and security key on a notepad and store it in multiple places.

[Crypto_Timothy]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

The "Risk of holding Bitcoin forever'' is that you will forget your seed phrase?? I means to be honest that is more of a you problem and i think now there are several tools now that can aid you in that aspect although the number one security for me is to write down the phrase and store it someplace very safe within your reach, so you can hold Bitcoin for as long as you have conviction for, i dont think your problem or worry should be losing your password in 2026.

[Big Dirams]

I don't know why you believe that there are people who want to hold BTC forever. It makes sense to say you'd always own some BTC, just as you'd probably always own real estate or stocks if you are involved with these assets.

However, holding forever almost means you do not plan to do anything with your coins, but if you'd always own BTC, i would take it to mean you're never going to sell all of your BTC, i wouldn't. So you'd sell and spend some along the way, but BTC would always form a part of your portfolio, which makes a lot of sense.

The cryptocurrency world is such a complicated place if not why would any investor or holder have the mindset of holding bitcoin forever like no plans of exit or no strategy on how to secure profits and make use of their earned profits like that just so complicated. It is called investing so we can make profits from it and boost our portfolio and at the long run we can spend the funds or make proper use of it for our own personal benefit but some would just want to rather hold for longer period of time and to be precise forever like that so dumb to me.
 What the essence of having the patience and waiting for the market to pump or dump like no reason for holding, no plans or securing our profits and making use of our profits like that so dumb and weird.

[cocadalcan]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Is there any logic to holding Bitcoin forever? Do you want to leave this digital asset to your children? Great but do you want to make your children lazy who will eat up the wealth you left behind and curse you for not leaving more wealth.

Accumulation Bitcoin and keep your security key in the right place and with it by writing down the seed phrase through pen and paper in a cold safe place. Accumulation Bitcoin as advised by experienced investors for 4 to 10 years and use discretionary income. The purpose of acquiring wealth is to improve yourself financially and live a comfortable and secure life.

[7juju]

Those who invested in bitcoin at the time when it was launched and forgot about it, there are many among these who forgot their password. That is like losing all your money just because you held very long. Those who are investing now and plan to hold forever, are they in better position or their fate will be similar ?

Those that are investing now are in better position because people are now aware of how valuable bitcoin is now. Unlike those early days when bitcoin was invented, and the price was nothing to write about. Many people bought bitcoin casually back then and didn't care about storing their passwords well because they never believed bitcoin will be this big. But people buying bitcoin now know that their password or Seed phrase is as important as their bitcoin so they will their time to securely it safely.