Never recovered bitcoins? Less than 21million?

[ranochigo]

At least a meager 0.01% increments added each year to counter the permanent loss. Come on 0.01% wouldn't dilute bitcoin value so drastically. And this would eventually ensure bitcoin continuity in supply. Plus some incentive to ensure there will always be miners after the 21 mil

Bitcoin isn't fiat, you cannot predict when will the generation and total estimated supply will be. Miners would mine for transaction fees after 2140 definitely. Bitcoin is meant to have a total coin cap so that one bitcoin wouldn't lose value. If the generation increases, people can just hold the bitcoin and the total circulation would be much higher.

[$erver-X]

why did the developers set amount of BTC to 21million they could have incresed it to like...100million

[franky1]

why did the developers set amount of BTC to 21million they could have incresed it to like...100million

nice round number of 0.003btc per person (based on 7bil people) without it having lots or random dust amounts thatneed to be rounded off
and the agreement of 50 coins to start that halve and halve again every 4 years equals this nice rounded number after doing all the maths

for instance if it was 100mill coins
first 4 years of blocks would be 238.0952381 bitcoins per block
first 4 years of blocks would be 119.04761905 bitcoins per block

both of which i had to round off (cut away) less that satoshi amounts making the totals not accurate.
and ofcourse giving each person (of 7billion population 0.01428571btc) again having to cut away extra decomals to bring it to rounded 8th decimal
ugly numbers that need rounding.....


so the 50coin a block which then halve to 25, then to 12.5 (nice easy to manage numbers while the reward is meaningful), totalling 21mill coin and as i said a nice round number per human (out of 7billion)

[Snorek]

The loss rate of "early" Bitcoins was probably greater than the current loss rate. 

It probably was. But we are not gonna find for sure what that was the amount of lost bitcoin. Also I think it is really useless to think about it, because there is nothing really we can do. Less bitcoin = more value.

[shanem]

Yes, these wallets are unable to be recovered as nobody has access to the wallet but this is just a drop in the ocean.
It will not affect the price a lot

[LiteCoinGuy]

At least a meager 0.01% increments added each year to counter the permanent loss. Come on 0.01% wouldn't dilute bitcoin value so drastically. And this would eventually ensure bitcoin continuity in supply. Plus some incentive to ensure there will always be miners after the 21 mil

makes no sense.

[Febo]

Hi guys,

As you may already be aware that there are people who simply lose bitcoins, and there is quite a lof of them!

For example: This guy lost his hard drive with 100k btc on it, another guy lost paper wallet with 30k btc on it and so on...

Now the question that i'm asking myself? Do they stay stuck in blockchain? Because if yes, than i see only about 8million bitcoins in circulation by the time they are mined..

Of course they stay on blackchain. And with time when computers will get stronger, they will be companies, that will search for this long lost wallets.  Same as are now companies, that search fro sunken ships from oceans. Pulling them out and sell their Gold or other things to pay costs and divide profit. So some coins on today lost wallets are not lost forever.

[findftp]

I think the total Bitcoins that never going to be used due to lost wallet files, lost passwords, etc will be around 1,000,000BTC MAX

Wrong, it is natures law that number eventually will be 21,000,000.
It only takes time and you and I are going to be dead for sure when that happens.

[ranochigo]

Hi guys,

As you may already be aware that there are people who simply lose bitcoins, and there is quite a lof of them!

For example: This guy lost his hard drive with 100k btc on it, another guy lost paper wallet with 30k btc on it and so on...

Now the question that i'm asking myself? Do they stay stuck in blockchain? Because if yes, than i see only about 8million bitcoins in circulation by the time they are mined..

Of course they stay on blackchain. And with time when computers will get stronger, they will be companies, that will search for this long lost wallets.  Same as are now companies, that search fro sunken ships from oceans. Pulling them out and sell their Gold or other things to pay costs and divide profit. So some coins on today lost wallets are not lost forever.

I think it would be disastrous if it ever happens, it would simply mean that wallet are not secure enough and people confidence in bitcoin would drop. If a vulnerability is found, we can just hardfork and go on a new algorithm and the old wallets would not be cracked.

[Q7]

I think the total Bitcoins that never going to be used due to lost wallet files, lost passwords, etc will be around 1,000,000BTC MAX

Wrong, it is natures law that number eventually will be 21,000,000.
It only takes time and you and I are going to be dead for sure when that happens.

Yes it's just a matter of time. How long we will never know. Imagine this generation of bitcoin adopters, if half of those people never tell anybody or pass along their private key before they die...

Eventually number of available bitcoin in circulation will be too low causing price to increase insanely just for a few fraction of  sats. This will turn off mass adoption.

[BurtW]

Hi guys,

As you may already be aware that there are people who simply lose bitcoins, and there is quite a lof of them!

For example: This guy lost his hard drive with 100k btc on it, another guy lost paper wallet with 30k btc on it and so on...

Now the question that i'm asking myself? Do they stay stuck in blockchain? Because if yes, than i see only about 8million bitcoins in circulation by the time they are mined..

Of course they stay on blackchain. And with time when computers will get stronger, they will be companies, that will search for this long lost wallets.  Same as are now companies, that search fro sunken ships from oceans. Pulling them out and sell their Gold or other things to pay costs and divide profit. So some coins on today lost wallets are not lost forever.

If you mean searching cryptographically for the private key then for sure, no.

If you mean trying to track down who owned it, finding them, going through their old computers, and trying to find the private key, then probably no.

Finding hard drives in the junk yard, searching them for lost private keys, then also probably no.

[BurtW]

At least a meager 0.01% increments added each year to counter the permanent loss. Come on 0.01% wouldn't dilute bitcoin value so drastically. And this would eventually ensure bitcoin continuity in supply. Plus some incentive to ensure there will always be miners after the 21 mil

Quit trying to "fix" Bitcoin before you understand what it is, how it works and why it is the way it is.

Side note FYI:  if any attempt is made to implement a change like this it will not change or "fix" Bitcoin in any way.  By design it is almost impossible to change or "fix" Bitcoin.  Generally, by design, actually implementing a change of this nature would simply cause the creation of a new alternative coin to branch off of Bitcoin, eventually wither, and die - Bitcoin would be unaffected.

[BurtW]

I think the total Bitcoins that never going to be used due to lost wallet files, lost passwords, etc will be around 1,000,000BTC MAX

Wrong, it is natures law that number eventually will be 21,000,000.
It only takes time and you and I are going to be dead for sure when that happens.

Yes it's just a matter of time. How long we will never know. Imagine this generation of bitcoin adopters, if half of those people never tell anybody or pass along their private key before they die...

Eventually number of available bitcoin in circulation will be too low causing price to increase insanely just for a few fraction of  sats. This will turn off mass adoption.

You are wrong.  Everyone I personally know that has a large amount of BTC has made provisions to transfer them to their heirs.  Bitcoin can operate just fine if we lose all but one BTC.

[lucasjkr]

And makes the remaining coins worth that much more, as there are fewer to vie for.

-B-

In theory, yes. In reality, no.

While people can and have lost their private keys, there is no way for the rest of us to truly verify that. We can look at the block chain and look for coins that haven't moved in some time, but is that because the coins are lost, or are they in cold storage, or just in someone's wallet who hasn't had the need to move them? Without true verification that the private keys are lost, you can't just use someone else's word as basis for assuming the rest of the coins are worth more. 

I think some time ago, BTC-e was assumed of being bribed to list a coin on its exchange. When news came out, BTC-e opted to destroy those coins in order to assure the community that they weren't being bribed - they destroyed those coins by sending them to an address which couldn't possibly have a private key.

Coins destroyed in that fashion can safely subtracted foe the total current and maximum numbers of coins in circulation, but that should be the only reason for doing so.

[juju]

Hi guys,

As you may already be aware that there are people who simply lose bitcoins, and there is quite a lof of them!

For example: This guy lost his hard drive with 100k btc on it, another guy lost paper wallet with 30k btc on it and so on...

Now the question that i'm asking myself? Do they stay stuck in blockchain? Because if yes, than i see only about 8million bitcoins in circulation by the time they are mined..

Someone has a thread that tries to track the known lost bitcoins: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0

I know their are other ones also I have seen overtime

[Robin_Good]

Gone Baby Gone.

[logger]

I read about a guy who lost a hard drive with 7500 BTC on it. I don't think anyone ever lost 100,000 or even 30,000.

[NotAtOld]

Yes they are stuck in the blockchain as no one have the private key to spend the funds. There is no real way to know how much bitcoin has been lost.

[cccarnation]

I'd say less then that. 60-70-80pct unaccessible would not surprise me.

[johnyj]

I think maximum 10% of all coins are in circulation, most of them are saved for long term, that is why banks prefer to use a 10% reserve ratio, this is the general behavior of majority of human