Topic: [2017-11-25] Exclusive: Nearly 4 Million Bitcoins Lost Forever, New Study Says (Read 5043 times)

The study is not pleasing  me at all . The graphs indicating that none of the bitcoin was "mined" is a foolish approach and discovery by the writers .
If bitcoin was not being "mined" how are miners becoming so conscious about the ongoing protests on increasing mining fees due to increased work load . That is just a speculation and the evidences are not "appealing" and "valid" to me .
Bitcoin does not get lost anywhere , the circulation goes on in one way or other . Numerous people are holding their bitcoin including me that does not "signify" the fact that bitcoin is getting lost . It is with the people waiting for the best time to get used and circulated.  The block chain actually does not give the all the transparency in order to make such analysis.         

It's strange how 2 days ago I was mentioning how much I was really looking forward to new research on Bitcoins lost forever, and it so happens I missed seeing this bit of news. I estimated only 1% but if the stats are solid, and I take Chainanalysis to be one of the best crypto forensics experts, then we're looking at 20% of entire supply that can never be practically recovered back into circulation.

Sounds quite far-fetched at first reading, especially at current circulation, that's a quarter of all mined coins. And to be sure, we're going to see more coins disappear runninh up to the next halving.

Could this have been part of the bull run these few days?

Aye, hardware death I can believe. There's a few publicly admitted instances of that on here.

Perhaps there should be an anonymous site where people can confess to losing their coins so we get an idea.

And the dead disks, greedily holding their stash. Appreciating like crazy but never again to be accessed.

I just did. Statistically there must be a few, but other than that it would mainly be youngsters who diverted themselves from furious masturbation for long enough to do a bit of mining so the majority are still alive.

I'd love to know what the peak year of coin losses would've been. It's easy to say 2009 but anyone mining back then would've been part of a tiny group and would hopefully have had the mindset to know it was going to go somewhere.

20% of all circulation lost is slightly more than I would believe
as it has been mentioned,many of the "out of circulation" coins could very well be dormant
holders,investors and such do not send them every day from wallet to wallet
2.6 million bitcoins out of which it could be 80% or more accessible
also we don't know if Satoshi moves his coins at some point or not

If you want to recover your BCH see this Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7eixcu/recovering_bch_sent_to_segwit_addresses/

Just think of the dead people.

Probably ought to write out some instructions for a close family member to be able to carry on nicely after the lambo crash or whatever. 

Hmm, a little bit skeptic about the truthiness of this article. If those 4 million bitcoins "Lost Forever" - this means during 2040, only left 17 million bitcoins still in circulation (it also didn't count, whether there's another some sort of "lost" in this 17 million bitcoins)

I can well believe it's a shit ton of coins, but short of going around everyone's house and asking nicely whether they have private keys or not this is 100% guesswork for most of them.

We still occasionally see 2009 and 2010 coins moving. I'm sure there are plenty in their estimations that are perfectly accessible.

I have some bitcoins that haven't moved since 2011. They are not lost now, but I could lose the private key tomorrow. You can't determine whether or not I have lost the private key by looking at the block chain.

That was my first thought after reading their estimations. I have some coins that were out of circulation since 2014 and all I even haven't withdrew the forked coins from those addresses. They're estimating between 30 and 50% of coins like mine are lost. What if it's only 10%? I mean you can never know! Not many people will share with you that they've lost their passphrases or deleted their only wallet.dat.

I have been hodling my coins firmly throughout the years, which according to them will likely result in my coins to eventually contribute to the number of "lost" coins, which is quite a pathetic way of thinking.

My coins are out of circulation, and that's really it. If I want to cash out my fork coins, and for that reason move my Bitcoins to a completely new wallet, it according to them will mean that I miraculously gained back access.

In reality, my coins are still out of circulation despite them having moved in recent times. Some people have too much time on their hands it seems. Isn't there really another subject to cover instead of this?

This article holds no value. Despite the fact that one can just freely speculate about how many coins are lost, it's impossible to come to a number of the coins that are actually lost. Satoshi's stash might be lost for ever, but it may also be him (or they) not willing to touch any of these coins in the foreseeable future. Also, coins that aren't moving, or haven't moved in quite a while, aren't lost -- it shouldn't be that difficult to understand. This article is set up like they just wanted to get something online, but without actually thinking things through properly.

I would take this study with a pinch of salt. The holders coins, which account for a significant chunk, may be just that - held in cold storage. They may re-enter circulation at any point in time. It is not just the price which determines when a 'held' bitcoin will be sold, it is also the individual's circumstances. Assuming that 50% of such coins are lost is an extreme assumption.

0.001BTC was burned here: https://blockchain.info/address/1xPPxProfitProphetSyndicatev6F9Ce and I accidentally sent 0.88BCH to a BTC SegWit address. I'm just doing my part to make everyone richer, guys!😂

Some of these coins which are thought to be forgotten and lost because there hasn't been any activity for a long time... Couldn't they belong to extreme hodlers who have been holding on to their coins all this time? I know it might be a stretch, but the thought of all those millions of coins being lost forever is really tragic and I don't really want to believe in it

I really doubt about these quantum computers being able to find private keys. I think this was just fake news and FUD against bitcoin. Very powerful super-computers already exist and quantum computers will not be so much better. If this was possible, generating private keys out of BTC address, than people would already try to do it with super-computers. You simply don't have enough information. BTC address and private key are not connected by some algorithm, they are independent. You can't calculate the speed of a car, if you only know it's colour.

About four million bitcoins, to which access is lost at this time, is impressive. But why is it believed that they are lost forever? If they simply remained encrypted in the block chainin block-chain. The time will come for new technologies and people will be able to restore access to them again. Recently, information has appeared that with the help of quantum computers in a few years it will be possible to decipher the current digital codes of private keys to purses, which in general poses a threat to the existence of crypto currency. Hence it will be possible to select codes for those bitkoynam, which are considered lost. Especially it will be worthwhile to do this if the cost bitkoyna very much even in comparison with the current cost.

Very interesting study, thank you for sharing it with us.

However, I´m wondering about the accuracy of their methodology. A huge part of the BTC wallets that they classify as "inactive"
may simply be paper wallets or hardware wallets of long-term BTC holders. Many of these intend to keep their holdings for several
decades and aren´t even remotely interested in claiming any additional value from possible BTC forks. Therefore
I´d argue that a non-negligible percentage of the wallets that are inactive to Chainalysis are actually still active
cold wallets of long-term investors.

Nevertheless, I think their overall estimate is quite likely to be true. This obviously has interesting ramifications
for the Bitcoin economy, because this makes the remaining (and still accessible) Bitcoins more valuable.

Just as gold bars are lost at sea or $100 bills can burn, bitcoins can disappear from the Internet forever. When all 21 million bitcoins are mined by the year 2040, the actual amount available to trade or spend will be significantly lower.

According to new research from Chainalysis, a digital forensics firm that studies the bitcoin blockchain, 3.79 million bitcoins are already gone for good based on a high estimate—and 2.78 million based on a low one. Those numbers imply 17% to 23% of existing bitcoins, which are today worth around $8,500 each, are lost.

While others have speculated about the number of lost bitcoins, the Chainalysis findings are significant because they rely on a detailed empirical analysis of the blockchain, where all bitcoin transactions are recorded.

As the graphic above shows, Chainalysis’s conclusions rely on segmenting the existing bitcoin supply based on age and transaction activity. For some segments, the company used statistical sampling to determine the amount lost.

The segment “Mined Coins” reflects bitcoins mined in 2017 (which are presumed not to be lost), while “transactional” refers to those that have moved or spent in the last year—very few of which are lost. Likewise, the category of “Strategic Investors,” who have held their bitcoins for 1-2 years represent a very small share of the losses.

Here’s the data in another format, which shows how “Out of circulation” bitcoins—those mined 2-7 years ago and belonging to long-time investors known as “hodlers”—and those from the early days of bitcoin in 2009 and 2010 account for the vast majority of the lost coins:



These figures reflect bitcoins that are truly lost, and not hacked or otherwise stolen—in these cases, of course, the bitcoin is not lost since the thief has control of them.

Note the numbers above are based on the high estimate, and that the low estimate, which is based on only a 30% loss in “hodler” coins, puts the number of lost bitcoins at 2,767,468. Also, both estimates make a critical assumption that coins belonging to bitcoin’s inventor, Satoshi, are gone for good (more on that below).

In the future, more bitcoins will be lost. But the rate at which they disappear will be much lower than in the past since, now that they’re so valuable, people will be more vigilant about keeping track of them (unlike this poor fellow out who threw away a hard drive with the key to 7,500 bitcoins). Meanwhile, there is a question of whether the Chainalysis findings mean bitcoin is more scarce than people assume—or if the market has already priced the missing coins into the currency’s current value.

“That is a very complex question. On the one hand, direct calculations about market cap do not take lost coins into consideration. Considering how highly speculative this field is, those market cap calculations may make it into economic models of the market that impact spending activity,” said Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin. “Yet the market has adapted to the actual demand and supply available – just look at exchange behavior. Furthermore, it is well known monetary policy procedure to lower or increase fiat reserves to impact exchange rates. So the answer is yes and no.”

Lost Bitcoins and the Secret of Satoshi

Chainalysis, whose clients include the IRS and Europol, has made a name for itself in the bitcoin world because of its abundant data and sophisticated study of blockchain wallets. Law enforcement agencies rely on the company to provide detailed insights into who owns the currency and how it moves around.

Chainalysis’s overall methodology is confidential, but a spokesperson shared certain details about how the company assesses which bitcoins are lost. An important clue comes when there is a “fork” in the blockchain, such as the one this summer which led to the creation of a bitcoin clone known as Bitcoin Cash. Such events can lead to the owners of wallets that have been inactive for years to conduct a transaction, providing an opportunity for statistical analysis.

These sort of clues help inform the Chainalysis figure for the “hodler” category—wallets belonging to people who got into bitcoin before it hit the big time, and which represent the biggest source of uncertainty as to whether bitcoins are lost or just being hoarded.

As for the 2% of “‘transactional” bitcoins that Chainalysis determined to be gone, Levin says this is based on scraping the Internet for reports of lost coins. He added that the estimate of such losses, which can arise from a misdirected transaction or the loss of a private key through death or carelessness, is not based on statistical extrapolation and will be refined further in coming years.

Finally, there’s the question of what became of the bitcoins belonging to Satoshi, the pseudonymous creator of the crypto-currency, who has not been not been heard from since 2011. Chainalysis says wallets associated with Satoshi represent about 1 million bitcoins (the company will provide a more specific figure later this year), and that its model assumes that those coins—which date from a time when it was easy to mine 50 bitcoin with a laptop—are gone forever. This assumption is a big one and, if it proves to be incorrect, the number of circulating bitcoins could suddenly increase significantly and deliver a shock to the market.

Fortune asked Levin about what he found most surprising about the lost bitcoin findings.

“Firstly, we floated our findings to a few people and they all had different reactions about how surprising the figure was. But what I found most surprising/interesting was how when you unpack what it means to be “lost” things get even more confusing.” he said.
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