Lost Bitcoins

[Inedible]

I'm just wondering how many Bitcoins have been lost to the ether. There are a few threads from 2011 that discuss the philosophical details of lost Bitcoins and one thread in 2013 tries to list all the losses but gets as far as 2 instances totalling juuuuuust over 20 Bitcoin.

I'd like to create a definitive list of lost Bitcoins.


The database now requires:

Date Last Activity
Date Lost
Address
Amount
Whom - This should be a pseudonym
Added By - Most likely a bitcointalk.org username (If other, specify)

An address is needed (so that we can easily see if there are any outbound transactions) and an amount. It might be hard to determine an address if you've formatted your wallet on the hard drive but without an address the data would be meaningless. (Yes I know, you could just not move coins from a wallet to make it appear as if it's lost/abandoned but why would you do that?)

Update: Google Docs Spreadsheet created so that anyone can edit

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/166lXkfm_FeaNPvJI40rZjd-7e_k9_g_h8cXB4XdXmTY


Edited: Added more info

[jonald_fyookball]

why does it matter?  whether it was 20, 200 or 2000 coins lost, it's a small percentage.  I don't see the point of making a list. 

[ekstremista]

What about that guy whose bitcoins were on a dead hard disk discarded into a landfill? That's 7500 BTC right there, as I recall.

It's interesting that lost bitcoins can likely never be recovered. That seems like additional deflationary pressure over time.

[franky1]

it is presumed that the first couple hundred blocks from genesis were done with throw away wallets, they kept changing addresses and playing around with the code and thus the amounts satoshi has physical access to is far far far less than people expect.

while its hard to calculate how many addresses he discarded as part of his testing, it also becomes hard to get a definite amount of lost bitcoins as many would not want to admit their stupidity of bad back up processes or ignorance that bitcoin would ever kick off from the early days.

so whole alot of people are shouting out small numbers.. the reality could be much larger

[Balkhole]

It is really not possible to know for sure that any amount of bitcoin is lost as the only way that we "know" bitcoin is lost is when someone says as so, however it is really not possible to ever be able to confirm this.

[Btcvilla]

Less bitcoin = less supply, less supply = higher price.

[The Hacker known as 4chan]

I'm just wondering how many Bitcoins have been lost to the ether. There are a few threads from 2011 that discuss the philosophical details of lost Bitcoins and one thread in 2013 tries to list all the losses but gets as far as 2 instances totalling juuuuuust over 20 Bitcoin.

I'd like to create a definitive list of lost Bitcoins.

I need an address (so that we can easily find coins that move) and an amount. It might be hard to determine an address if you've formatted your wallet on the hard drive but without an address the data would be meaningless. (Yes I know, you could just not move coins from a wallet to make it appear as if it's lost/abandoned but why would you do that?)


Amount | Address
===========

I remember this thread from awhile ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0

That thread might be of some use if your going to honestly sit down and try to track each address. I would make a share on google docs maybe so we all can edit

[inBitweTrust]

This is never going to be remotely accurate. I am sure there will be reports from scam artists, trolls , or just people wanting to avoid taxes claiming "lost" bitcoins.

[allthingsluxury]

This list is going to be incredibly hard to have accurate. Good luck none the less.

[bigasic]

It would be impossible to get a good figure. but, rest assured, there are thousands of lost coins. Like someone already said that at the beginning they just "messed" around with it to get the code, plus at the beginning, bitcoins werent worth anything, so there wasn't a real need to save any. I think most people really started to save them when they had a value, i believe it was around 60 cents on mt.gox, Im just guessing. I've heard many stories of early miners "forgetting" about the coins and have no idea where they are and others that have spent days looking for them. Some with success. But, I bet more coins have been stolen than those that were just lost at the beginning. The first theft that I heard of was around in the summer of 2011, the guy had 500k worth of coins stolen and thats when btc was just at a few dollars, I believe he committed suicide.

But, it would be interesting to know the "Exact" amount that are missing. I think when we see a massive dump is possibly due to a thief dumping his coins. Mt. gox has a few hundred k gone, the numbers could actually be quite big...(which is actually good, less coins should raise the value I think) But, we better get more secure or the threat of loss because of theft will deter many people from adopting.

[teukon]

The first theft that I heard of was around in the summer of 2011, the guy had 500k worth of coins stolen and thats when btc was just at a few dollars, I believe he committed suicide.

I think you must mean allinvain.  25 000 BTC was a colossal loss but he didn't kill himself.  In fact, he last logged in just yesterday.

[ytr8]

I'm just wondering how many Bitcoins have been lost to the ether. There are a few threads from 2011 that discuss the philosophical details of lost Bitcoins and one thread in 2013 tries to list all the losses but gets as far as 2 instances totalling juuuuuust over 20 Bitcoin.

I'd like to create a definitive list of lost Bitcoins.

I need an address (so that we can easily find coins that move) and an amount. It might be hard to determine an address if you've formatted your wallet on the hard drive but without an address the data would be meaningless. (Yes I know, you could just not move coins from a wallet to make it appear as if it's lost/abandoned but why would you do that?)


Amount | Address
===========

Does the coins was really lost ??
 i lost my a little on C-CEX  because of my careless,Click  the' dump' button,but i don't think that it really lost.

[factor280]

I lost about 1/4 of a bitcoin when bitcoin first came out, computer crashed and I did not have it backed up :/

[yenzae0215]

i think there's nothing we can do for those bitcoins lost so what the list is for?

[Vod]

i lost my a little on C-CEX  because of my careless,Click  the' dump' button,but i don't think that it really lost.

Once you sent those coins to C-CEX, they were no longer yours.  C-CEX still has them.

[Inedible]

why does it matter?  whether it was 20, 200 or 2000 coins lost, it's a small percentage.  I don't see the point of making a list. 

To know if it was a small percentage, I guess you'd need to know how many were lost. For all we know, it's 5%.

The list is just for informational purposes and over time, to see if it does cause significant deflationary pressure although I suspect we won't be around to see that time.

[Inedible]

What about that guy whose bitcoins were on a dead hard disk discarded into a landfill? That's 7500 BTC right there, as I recall.

It's interesting that lost bitcoins can likely never be recovered. That seems like additional deflationary pressure over time.

I guess we'll have to leave those off the list unless we can have an address to go with it. The address is a requirement to confirm that a) there are indeed that quantity of Bitcoin lost and b) that the coins are likely lost (i.e. they've never moved since they were on the list).

I hope those Bitcoin really can never be recovered because if they can, it means people can recover coins from our wallets.

There will be deflationary pressure over time from lost Bitcoin alone but it should be small for a long time to come.

[Inedible]

it is presumed that the first couple hundred blocks from genesis were done with throw away wallets, they kept changing addresses and playing around with the code and thus the amounts satoshi has physical access to is far far far less than people expect.

while its hard to calculate how many addresses he discarded as part of his testing, it also becomes hard to get a definite amount of lost bitcoins as many would not want to admit their stupidity of bad back up processes or ignorance that bitcoin would ever kick off from the early days.

so whole alot of people are shouting out small numbers.. the reality could be much larger

It would be interesting if someone had the addresses for the initial blocks but these are probably indistinguishable from Shatoshi's accessible loot.

I can see that people won't want to admit to mistakes but I hope this could still be a useful resource for the community at the end of the day.

[Inedible]

It is really not possible to know for sure that any amount of bitcoin is lost as the only way that we "know" bitcoin is lost is when someone says as so, however it is really not possible to ever be able to confirm this.

This is true and that's why I think I'll include two dates to the database.

One to specify when the last outbound activity was and one to specify when it was reported.

If it's ever noticed that there's outbound activity then we know those coins aren't lost and it can be removed from the list.

[LeMiner]

https://docs.google.com/a/ij.hk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ahdy3Je_nYdOdFVocm4yTzhZOW1waWd6SFJIVHUwYUE#gid=0