They will say lost bitcoin is estimated to be...

[Oshosondy]

This is another occurrence that let us know we should not say bitcoin is lost because of inactive address or because the owner said it is lost.

Gardaí, national police and security service of Ireland seized 6000 BTC from Clifton Collins who was cultivating cannabis and making money from it. Cannabis cultivation is illegal in Ireland under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1984. He was arrested and sent to 5 years in prison. Gardaí thought that the seed phrases of Clifton Collins 12 wallets containing 6000 BTC has been lost but one woke up recently and the 500 BTC was sent to Coinbase. The coin has now been seized.

It is good to know that the price of bitcoin went up since 2019 make the amount of money higher in fiat.

If you are interested in reading about it: https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2026/03/24/gardai-seize-bitcoin-valued-at-30m-in-cab-operation-supported-by-europol/

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

[logfiles]

Why would someone be so dumb to move 500 BTC that is being watched at once to Coinbase?

Anyway the authorities claim that they had seized the 6,000 bitcoins but didn't have the access to the wallets? How is this a seizure then? If they don't have the keys, then the Bitcoins are not under their control.

[notocactus]

This is another occurrence that let us know we should not say bitcoin is lost because of inactive address or because the owner said it is lost.

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

We never can know how many bitcoins actually were lost as we are not owners of those coins. Even the owners might think they already lost their coins but later find the wallet backups, wallet passwords or manager to bruteforce the wallet password and access their coins again.

Lost Bitcoin: 3.7 million Bitcoin are probably gone forever.
It's just probably lost bitcoin and with different UTXO age, we will be able to make different estimations.
https://www.bitcoinmagazinepro.com/charts/hodl-waves/

The only thing we know and it's true: Lost bitcoins are donations to everyone.
satoshi wrote like that and it's true at the time he posted until now and in the future too.

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

[PocketAurora]

Good example of why “lost” Bitcoin is often just “not moving” Bitcoin. Coins can sit untouched for years and suddenly move, all it takes is someone finding a seed phrase or regaining access. That’s why estimates of lost BTC are always… estimates.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lost-bitcoin.asp

In Bitcoin, silence doesn’t always mean disappearance.

[suzanne5223]

This is an interesting news and from what i see about this issue if care is not taking Clifton Collins can serve another years behind bar since the BTC was move into Coinbase account which i believe its a KYC account and the owner of the account is already know by the Europol after he has successfully lied to the authority about loosing the BTC wallet seed phrase.
Aside from the situation where the wallet address was said to be lost and suddenly woke up, ever since i learn about the potential of quantum computer i never consider all the exposed public wallet addresses with lost BTC to be lost anymore.

[Zaguru12]

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

They are also not lost bitcoin beyond 2019 too, those wallets in those early years might be belonging to people who had gotten bitcoin early and in that point have multiple storage for them and dormant accounts are probably those which the investor is holding onto. Or we could say they might have misplaced the private keys to that wallet but still it shouldn’t be considered lost.

Lost bitcoin in my opinion is those bitcoin that cannot be spent anymore like those with the OP _Return command, the other ones we could actually say that they might one day be spent if the owners gets access to their keys. This is one of the reason why even Satoshi coins no matter how long they have been unmoved are not regarded as lost coins

[rat03gopoh]

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

That's why I agree that there's only one condition for absolute loss of bitcoins: those sent to a burn address.

Anyway the authorities claim that they had seized the 6,000 bitcoins but didn't have the access to the wallets? How is this a seizure then? If they don't have the keys, then the Bitcoins are not under their control.

Yes, 6,000 bitcoins were stored in 12 different wallets, and only from a wallet (500 BTC) was seized, while the remaining 5.5k is not included in the seized amount (the keys to the remaining 11 wallets have not been recovered).

[Easteregg69]

One look at this place tells me it's all gurus loosing it on a casino.

I got the beers guys. Getting frontrun on a dex is not any better. Which brings me to fee structure. Cheers!

You pay to get first in line. Tell me why nice hash don't make batch payouts at the expense cost. Figured it out already. They have expenses besides the expenses. So they pass that on. Dutch on! 420 manor.

[Nathrixxx]

This is another occurrence that let us know we should not say bitcoin is lost because of inactive address or because the owner said it is lost.

Nothing like lost bitcoin since everything resulted back to the network as the value spreads over what we are all holding, therefore, lost bitcoin is nothing to be said of, because there's nothing to do in making recovery back, while we have the mindset of how the technicality appears, that every lost coin returns back to the market value.

[OgNasty]

Why would someone be so dumb to move 500 BTC that is being watched at once to Coinbase?

I am not a lawyer, but if he already served his time and the police already wrote off those coins as lost, did he commit a crime in moving them?  I'm assuming he probably served his time for whatever it is he was accused of and maybe those funds are free and clear now?  I know Double Jeopardy is a thing.  Maybe that is the reason behind him making this move?  I'm not familiar with the details but I'm assuming if he moved 500 BTC to Coinbase he had some sort of a plan.

[macson]

The way he initially used Coinbase to transfer the Bitcoins is a mistake that could land him in jail again for deceiving the police.

But regarding "lost Bitcoin," we can't know for certain whether Bitcoin that hasn't moved for years can be considered lost Bitcoin or not, because no one knows whether the owner of the wallet address actually lost access to the wallet or let the Bitcoin grow in the wallet and then sell it 10 or 20 years later.

All we can see is on-chain data without any context, and then assume it's "lost Bitcoin" just because it hasn't moved for years.

[joniboini]

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

Can't you use this case as an example to stretch the timeframe, too? I don't think 5 or 10 years ago matters. Even if the perpetrator "only" remembers the seed phrase 5 years later, I'm sure the government will use the same reasoning to seize the coins. Anyway, the point is that the owner still has access to the keys as mentioned above. Nobody can verify it other than the owners themselves.

Judging from this case, I guess if a scammer "forgot" their keys when they got arrested, they'll have to send their money even after they serve their sentence? I guess it depends on the ruling itself. If paying early can reduce their sentence maybe they'll just pay them.

[Cryptomultiplier]

With technology development and advancement, better technology for tracing and making sure that lost coins are actually lost, will be used by authorities to confirm if such coins are actually lost as claimed by any criminal under investigation or prosecution.

Also, this case points to the fact that the assumption that inactive wallets are dead wallets is wrong, because they could return to the market anytime and we see them as whale movements, not knowing the true story behind it.

[Cookdata]

The way he initially used Coinbase to transfer the Bitcoins is a mistake that could land him in jail again for deceiving the police.

But regarding "lost Bitcoin," we can't know for certain whether Bitcoin that hasn't moved for years can be considered lost Bitcoin or not, because no one knows whether the owner of the wallet address actually lost access to the wallet or let the Bitcoin grow in the wallet and then sell it 10 or 20 years later.

All we can see is on-chain data without any context, and then assume it's "lost Bitcoin" just because it hasn't moved for years.

A criminal will not be that stupid to send Bitcoin to a public exchange when he knows that the Bitcoin will be seize, he will likely launder the coins through protocol to conceal his identity and to hide it from tracing back to him.

I read from other sources that the coins were actually sent by Irish police, I don't know how true that confirmation was but it's likely that government officials will use coinbase exchange for this kind of things. All indication is saying that guy knows nothing about the coin, even if he went to the prison for been caught, I don't think an ex convict will be too foolish to dash coinbase the Bitcoin, even the user behind the deposit address will be in trouble if that's true.

500 of 6000 is seize, let see what will happen to the rest of the coins. If the Irish police now have access to private keys, they will sell the rest in the future and if this was him, he will not send the rest to any centralized exchange anymore.

[ZAINmalik75]

This is another occurrence that let us know we should not say bitcoin is lost because of inactive address or because the owner said it is lost.

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

I don't know what to say, but he was an idiot to move the funds to Coinbase, although it is good that he got caught. But if he has completed the sentence, why do they still want his funds? The story seems incomplete. because in the article, they said the wherebouts of the keys were lost? But they also said he hid them in fishing rod! This does not make any sense, they must have tortured him to make him tell where the keys are!

Anyway this has proved one or two things, that if you own the keys you own the funds ever after years, and if you want to sell, don't go for centralized exchange but this is for non criminals, I want criminals to get caught so they could get what they deserve.
I am sure they can recover the rest now.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Apparently law enforcement was able to crack one of the wallets and then sent those 500 BTC to Coinbase.

Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) worked with Europol to crack the wallet and move the Bitcoin into Coinbase.

Even though it was believed that the keys were lost forever, it’s probable that Irish police had access to them all these years. Cannabis cultivation seems like such a minor thing to arrest somebody for and take almost half a billion dollars away from them. This is nothing more than legalized theft.

[KingsDen]

This is another occurrence that let us know we should not say bitcoin is lost because of inactive address or because the owner said it is lost.

Although coin not moved since 2019 may be seen as not lost but how about those not active since 10 or more years ago.

I don't know what to say, but he was an idiot to move the funds to Coinbase, although it is good that he got caught. But if he has completed the sentence, why do they still want his funds? The story seems incomplete. because in the article, they said the wherebouts of the keys were lost? But they also said he hid them in fishing rod! This does not make any sense, they must have tortured him to make him tell where the keys are!

Anyway this has proved one or two things, that if you own the keys you own the funds ever after years, and if you want to sell, don't go for centralized exchange but this is for non criminals, I want criminals to get caught so they could get what they deserve.
I am sure they can recover the rest now.

The story was not bold enough to say that the ex prisoner sent the 500 BTC to coinbase. It could be a random person that got access to the seed phrase. It could also be one of the security operatives that raided his home. It could also be the victim himself.

But I want to believe more that it was the security operatives, maybe they tested if the BTC is spendable but they were stupid to send it to coinbase. I wish the right person will be caught, let it not be a fake KYC scenario and an innocent person would be punished.

So, what happens to the rest of the BTC, I am interested to know

[X-ray]

Everybody is using market cap and market cap is counted from circulating supply x price so even though some people might take into account the dormant bitcoin as lost bitcoin, everybody in the market is still counting as if those dormant bitcoin still exist and can be circulated into the market.

Basically even if things like this happen where a bitcoin that was deemed to be lost, become active again, it will have no effect. Nobody could figure out the exact number of the lost bitcoin anyway.

[btc78]

Good example of why “lost” Bitcoin is often just “not moving” Bitcoin. Coins can sit untouched for years and suddenly move, all it takes is someone finding a seed phrase or regaining access. That’s why estimates of lost BTC are always… estimates.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lost-bitcoin.asp

In Bitcoin, silence doesn’t always mean disappearance.

well especially where long-term holding of bitcoin is encouraged we can’t always assume that unmoving bitcoins are lost and can’t be accessed by their owners anymore. some people just have crazy discipline not to touch their coins until they decide to do so.

[Die_empty]

With technology development and advancement, better technology for tracing and making sure that lost coins are actually lost, will be used by authorities to confirm if such coins are actually lost as claimed by any criminal under investigation or prosecution.

Also, this case points to the fact that the assumption that inactive wallets are dead wallets is wrong, because they could return to the market anytime and we see them as whale movements, not knowing the true story behind it.

When a wallet has not moved for a very long time, it is assumed in some quarters that it has been lost. Some of the coins that were seen as lost might move in the future, so we cannot certainly determine which coins are lost or not. I also don't think that AI technology would be able to determine the accurate number of lost coins. We would keep assuming or estimating the number because the accurate figure might never be determined.