15 years ago, 21 million Bitcoins sounded like a huge amount. Today, especially when we have greedy ETFs that buy everything on offer, it all looks much different.
For a long time, not so much attention was paid to the security and storage of BTC, and I know of many stories about lost Bitcoins. Defective hardware, forgotten-lost passwords or private keys etc... I recently read somewhere that around 4 million Bitcoins are considered lost due to similar reasons.
Is there any approximately precise analysis of how many such, forever-locked Bitcoins there are?
You must be an old user of crypto, because only in start 5 to 7 years, crypto was not that much famous, so people from that time zone must think of 21 million supply as a huge amount, while when I stepped into crypto, I thought this is not enough, because when I get to learn about blockchain and crypto technology, I realized, this is undervalued, we need more tokens, these tokens are not going to fulfil the need. But when I realized the total amount would be mined til 2140 then I calmed down, as Gen Z might not get to live till then.
Talking about sources, I found these two and they also suggest the same amount you have said.
https://support.river.com/kb/en/buying-selling-bitcoin-285917https://fortune.com/crypto/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/Well, the lost of some funds is beneficial for traders and holders, but no doubt it is sad that people lost there money. My cousin was a Software developer, and my Father, both spent time back in 2010 and mined BTC. But both did not took it seriously and now they have lost the keys, the hardware they used to mine, each and everything. Point is, there are numerous people who did the same.