Lost, Forgotten Bitcoin. How many are there?

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

It is now known that Bitcoin is a gem and no body wants to joke with their wallet security any longer unlike in the past 15 years you are talking about. But 15 years about, Bitcoin was nothing, no body have the ability to look into the future to know that the value of Bitcoin then will become what it is today, so there's to need to even date back then. Even if we also look at the starting price of some altcoins like Dogecoin, who even took that coin serious when they first launched? I lost my first millions of Dogecoin on cryptopia exchange that crashed, it was after the coin pumped that I realized I had some amounts in that exchange.
I have not got any accurate data for the total Bitcoin that have been confirmed lost but at least it's for the better 

[Captain Corporate]

It would also be impossible to calculate because we do not know what is lost and what is not. After all, if someone didn't touch any of his coins for the past 10 years, how would we know if he has access but holding it, versus him just losing it? This is why this is impossible to know. BUT there is a possibility that we could just calculate the amount of coins untouched for a long period of time, someone could calculate all the coins that hasn't been touched for the past 5 years and 10 years as well. That would give you an estimate on how may of the coins are basically out of the market and not used.

[bitterguy28]

I myself have lost some amount of Bitcoin few years ago and up to now Never that I will recover that and will be lost forever (just wanted to contribute from my own experience)
and also I believe that there will never be a legit details of how much bitcoin was lost , because even if the wallet is not moving for more than 10 years yet it may be an active wallet or sleeping one.

In the past, there were still many bitcoin wallets that were sometimes hacked and sometimes we forgot the secret code we had.
So the bitcoins you own are still intact in that wallet address, which is what causes bitcoins to run out because a lot of the supply is trapped in an old wallet that can no longer be accessed.

yeah , up to now I can check the wallet and the bitcoin still sits there and that is frustrating knowing that it is use to be my bitcoin and seeing the value of bitcoin now? damn that should be a big amount for me now comparing to how much it is when i lose it, while the value of bitcoin continues to increase day by day.

[tranthidung]

yeah , up to now I can check the wallet and the bitcoin still sits there and that is frustrating knowing that it is use to be my bitcoin and seeing the value of bitcoin now? damn that should be a big amount for me now comparing to how much it is when i lose it, while the value of bitcoin continues to increase day by day.

For what you lost, consider it already gone forever.

Don't try to complicate your life with your calculation that how much does your past loss is at today price?

If you think your past loss this way, you will feel painful, more painful with time and it is not helpful at all.

If you spent your bitcoins, in another example, to buy luxury things like iPhone, years ago, don't consider it as your loss. You bought a luxury item, enjoyed it and now consider it as your loss, no life is not like this.

Cost of An iPhone in Bitcoin & Ether, Over The Years

[IvugeoEvolutionCoin]

yeah , up to now I can check the wallet and the bitcoin still sits there and that is frustrating knowing that it is use to be my bitcoin and seeing the value of bitcoin now? damn that should be a big amount for me now comparing to how much it is when i lose it, while the value of bitcoin continues to increase day by day.

For what you lost, consider it already gone forever.

Don't try to complicate your life with your calculation that how much does your past loss is at today price?

If you think your past loss this way, you will feel painful, more painful with time and it is not helpful at all.

If you spent your bitcoins, in another example, to buy luxury things like iPhone, years ago, don't consider it as your loss. You bought a luxury item, enjoyed it and now consider it as your loss, no life is not like this.

Cost of An iPhone in Bitcoin & Ether, Over The Years

A very large number, this is what is called a very profitable price movement, unfortunately there are still many who don't understand and are afraid to buy Bitcoin. I didn't think that the iPhone 4S was worth the equivalent of 162 Bitcoins. If only I had bought Bitcoin at the price when the iPhone 4S was trending then I have made a lot of profit and become very rich.

[Tribalchief]

I myself have lost some amount of Bitcoin few years ago and up to now Never that I will recover that and will be lost forever (just wanted to contribute from my own experience)
and also I believe that there will never be a legit details of how much bitcoin was lost , because even if the wallet is not moving for more than 10 years yet it may be an active wallet or sleeping one.

In the past, there were still many bitcoin wallets that were sometimes hacked and sometimes we forgot the secret code we had.
So the bitcoins you own are still intact in that wallet address, which is what causes bitcoins to run out because a lot of the supply is trapped in an old wallet that can no longer be accessed.

yeah , up to now I can check the wallet and the bitcoin still sits there and that is frustrating knowing that it is use to be my bitcoin and seeing the value of bitcoin now? damn that should be a big amount for me now comparing to how much it is when i lose it, while the value of bitcoin continues to increase day by day.

Losing what you've worked for can be very painful, especially when you can still see it but can't feel or make use of it. I have also lost a good amount of coins in the past due to reckless decisions. These decisions still pain me a lot, but the most important thing is that I have learned not to make similar mistakes again. I think anyone who hasn't lost his/her Bitcoin accidentally should consider themselves very lucky, because even those who are careful also make mistakes.

[EthereumDev_]

Losing what you've worked for can be very painful, especially when you can still see it but can't feel or make use of it. I have also lost a good amount of coins in the past due to reckless decisions. These decisions still pain me a lot, but the most important thing is that I have learned not to make similar mistakes again. I think anyone who hasn't lost his/her Bitcoin accidentally should consider themselves very lucky, because even those who are careful also make mistakes.

Exactly, regrets like that will often happen, but what we did in the past if we didn't do it, we know whether it will still survive today. As you have said, the past must be used as a very important lesson to become better than before.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Losing what you've worked for can be very painful, especially when you can still see it but can't feel or make use of it. I have also lost a good amount of coins in the past due to reckless decisions. These decisions still pain me a lot, but the most important thing is that I have learned not to make similar mistakes again. I think anyone who hasn't lost his/her Bitcoin accidentally should consider themselves very lucky, because even those who are careful also make mistakes.

Exactly, regrets like that will often happen, but what we did in the past if we didn't do it, we know whether it will still survive today. As you have said, the past must be used as a very important lesson to become better than before.

Yes, this kind of regrets are useless and it is better to avoid them, although if it is a huge amount, let's say the typical case of someone who had hundreds of bitcoins because he mined them when they were not worth more than a few cents and then lost them, it is inevitable that he eats his head until at some point he is able to turn over a new leaf.

But it is the same thing that happens with the one who bought bitcoins for example at $100 and sold them for $1,000. If he had waited longer he would have earned much more but he sold under those circumstances and that's it.

There is no excuse for losing bitcoins (or rather the keys) nowadays. In the early years I understand that it was more normal but nowadays whoever does not take the precaution should not complain if he loses them.

[armanda90]

Current bitcoin supply 21 million Bitcoins right now not reach yet, many people loss their bitcoin when price still cheapest with loss from website have been scam, loss access with hardware wallet until most of them forget which one place for storing their bitcoin. Still not accurate update with how many bitcoin loss from market supply and seems more than 3% until 5% bitcoin gone based on reason above.
Its why make bitcoin keep stable in higher price without any one can't controlling or make bitcoin dump or pump, seems interested if any one can hold or share their opinion about how many bitcoin loss in their wallet?

[Stompix]

Current bitcoin supply 21 million Bitcoins right now not reach yet, many people loss their bitcoin when price still cheapest with loss from website have been scam, loss access with hardware wallet until most of them forget which one place for storing their bitcoin.

Bitcoins lost in scams are not "lost" coins, they have a new owner, aka the scammer who can move them freely.

Also, all those numbers are just approximations, we have every month a clickbait-ish title about "satoshi era coins" moving again, so maybe a lot of those 10-year-old coins are not truly lost. Besides all methodologies have problems with one issue or the other, first age doesn't mean lost, and just moved 2 weeks ago doesn't mean the user hasn't lost their hard wallet in the meantime. Also, custodial services are not moving their coins often as long as they have in one wallet enough liquidity, so all that million coins coinbase is holding alongside what Bitgo has might look like 5-10 years old unmoved coins but are still pretty much accessible. And a ton more!

This is pretty much like trying to find all paintings from an artist, it's been 130 years since Van Gogh died and we're still finding one new paiting each year.

[dkbit98]

Cost of An iPhone in Bitcoin & Ether, Over The Years

Yeah, but they can't change Bitcoin every year like they change their phones, and they need to have the latest model with 0.0010000% performance improvements 
I think a lot more people lost their house keys, phones and wallets than keys for Bitcoins, but collect them all together and they don't worth much compared to bitcoin.
One guy I know who sold Lambo to buy more Bitcoin back in the days was Roger Ver.

[Stompix]

Just read another article and immediately thought about this topic.
So:
https://mempool.space/tx/2c8960feef2c66a8960f058cef11f42ba883db53e3287f085bffd29d663fc98a
seems like the lost coins are now x-500 as 500 coins that haven't moved for 12 years are on the run 

I hope that another batch won't awaken also cause the change that funded one of the addresses went into one that held 15 000 coins.

[debra]

-snip- many people loss their bitcoin when price still cheapest with loss from website have been scam, loss access with hardware wallet until most of them forget which one place for storing their bitcoin. Still not accurate update with how many bitcoin loss from market supply and seems more than 3% until 5% bitcoin gone based on reason above.

For scam cases, the Bitcoin was stolen by bad people. But the stolen Bitcoin still exists, they didn't disappear. The bad people must put the Bitcoin in somewhere. They can send the Bitcoin some time to the market again if they want to sell the stolen Bitcoin.

Yes, some Bitcoin is trapped on wallets because people lost the private keys to access the wallets. The Bitcoin cannot be sent to the market because people has no ability to access it anymore. For this case, we can assume the Bitcoin has been separated from the total circulating supply of Bitcoin.

[TopT3ns]

-snip- many people loss their bitcoin when price still cheapest with loss from website have been scam, loss access with hardware wallet until most of them forget which one place for storing their bitcoin. Still not accurate update with how many bitcoin loss from market supply and seems more than 3% until 5% bitcoin gone based on reason above.

For scam cases, the Bitcoin was stolen by bad people. But the stolen Bitcoin still exists, they didn't disappear. The bad people must put the Bitcoin in somewhere. They can send the Bitcoin some time to the market again if they want to sell the stolen Bitcoin.

Yes, some Bitcoin is trapped on wallets because people lost the private keys to access the wallets. The Bitcoin cannot be sent to the market because people has no ability to access it anymore. For this case, we can assume the Bitcoin has been separated from the total circulating supply of Bitcoin.

If we see stolen bitcoins, they will use mixers or exchanges to launder money so that the traces of the bitcoin transactions they carry out are untraceable, so no one will know who the thief is.

It is true that many Bitcoins were trapped when the price was still cheap in 2010. Many people bought Bitcoins but they neglected to save the secret keys they had to access their wallets.
So currently, when you look at transactions in 2010, there are still a lot of bitcoins trapped in those wallets.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Is there any approximately precise analysis of how many such, forever-locked Bitcoins there are?

I believe that nothing is actually lost in the literal sense, because if I remember correctly, at some point in the future technology will reach a point where it will be able to save all those coins that are somehow stuck. I would speculate that today we cannot count on at least 2 million BTC, of which supposedly half of what was mined by Satoshi, and at least that much was "locked" or lost in the first years.

Some will say that in the beginning Bitcoin was practically worthless, but it was also quite easy to mine - and in the first 4 years alone, 10+ million BTC were mined, which is almost half of everything that will ever exist. I think that the key is in those first 4 years, because in my opinion the most BTC was "lost" right then.