Losing private key with tens of thousands of BTC

[nkocevar]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

[drawingthesun]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

Because such a small amount of the bitcoin supply is on all the exchanges combined there would be no effect on the market.

I think less than 1% of the supply of Bitcoin is on every exchange in the world.

You could loss 100,000 and it wouldn't even get priced in.

[bryant.coleman]

The total combined trading volume for the three biggest BTC exchanges amount to almost BTC60,000 per day. Add in the smaller exchanges (+ localbitcoins) and the daily trade volume crosses BTC200,000. 10K BTC will be something like a needle in the haystack. 

[Charlie Prime]

This does not help my mourning of the 6 bitcoins I threw away several years ago because they weren't worth my time to back-up when I reformatted my hard drive. 

[JessyMatt]

This does not help my mourning of the 6 bitcoins I threw away several years ago because they weren't worth my time to back-up when I reformatted my hard drive. 

Wow, there have to be a way to recover them.

[odolvlobo]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

In the short term, there is no difference between bitcoins sitting dormant at an address and bitcoins that are lost.

Over the long term, the value of the remaining bitcoins will tend to rise according to the number of bitcoins lost. 10,000 BTC is about 0.5% of the total supply, so the price would go up by that amount.

[lnternet]

If the person that lost the 40k BTC will buy 40k new ones to replenish, the price will go up instead of staying stable.
If the person that lost the 40k BTC would have sold them, but now can't, the price will stay stable instead of going down.

If the person doesn't do anything, whether they have 40k BTC or not, the loss of the coins will not affect the price.

[hensi]

People have already lost their private keys containing thousands of BTC, but it wont effect the market in any ways, 10000 is just too small.

[Charlie Prime]

Wow, there have to be a way to recover them.

I wish there were, but successive installs of Ubuntu on this hard drive have destroyed any remnant of them.

I know I burned them to CD one time.  I keep hoping I find that CD in a dusty box of junk somewhere, but I never do.  I suspect I threw the CD away during a bout of spring cleaning years ago.

I will whine and cry about this even more in the coming years when 1 BTC = $1,000,000 USD.

[Fearless]

When bitcoin was worth $0.02 some people already mined It and mined thousands of It but they probably did It for curiosity only and had no idea that It will go so big, so It's just a gamble, someone lost private keys or dropped their hard drives into bin having no idea that It will be worth so much and other lucky people saved It till now. This Is past and I doubt anyone would make mistakes Like that now days.  So there are lucky and unlucky people 

[Malin Keshar]

think it won't, because if he has private keys it is not on exchanges, so the influence in price has already priced(pun intended)

[alani123]

I don't think it would even affect the market at all. Over here, https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr

2k bitcoin destroyied for counterparty's IPO. Did it make the market's movement to go up? I don't think so.

[Razick]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.

[Mrrr]

Or tossing a hard drive with 7500 BTC into the dumpster:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site

(still my fav. story)

[2_Thumbs_Up]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.

It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

[Razick]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.

It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

That's very true, or it could cause them to stop buying more Bitcoins out of frustration, but there wouldn't be any direct effect.

[2_Thumbs_Up]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.

It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

That's very true, or it could cause them to stop buying more Bitcoins out of frustration, but there wouldn't be any direct effect.

The direct effect is the change of his marginal utility of bitcoin. If you have less of an asset then your marginal utility of that asset increases. Someone with 1 BTC is more likely to buy more BTC than someone with 10.000 BTC, all else equal.

It is rational to want bitcoin more when you have less. This effect is different from random emotional reactions towards the loss.

[Razick]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.

It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

That's very true, or it could cause them to stop buying more Bitcoins out of frustration, but there wouldn't be any direct effect.

The direct effect is the change of his marginal utility of bitcoin. If you have less of an asset then your marginal utility of that asset increases. Someone with 1 BTC is more likely to buy more BTC than someone with 10.000 BTC, all else equal.

It is rational to want bitcoin more when you have less. This effect is different from random emotional reactions towards the loss.

I see your point. I would still consider that an indirect effect, however, since he may or may not choose to change his purchasing behavior, and he could do so at any point (now, 5 years from now, etc). There is no effect that can be directly attributed to those Bitcoins no longer existing.

[ranlo]

Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It wouldn't affect it at all right now unless they were actively selling their coins. It's supply and demand; if they weren't supplying, the loss doesn't affect supply.

[Corporate]

There is 5000 btc sitting on some junked laptop in a landfill somewhere that I threw out. I dont even give it a second thought.