Topic: how Bitcoin will deal with lost tokens? - page 3. (Read 661 times)
There are a total of 18,684,393 bitcoin currently circulating in the market [data]which means there are 2,315,607 bitcoin locked in the wallet. Some bitcoins that are currently locked can still be activated if the owner manages to recover his lost wallet phrase, or it is possible that the number will continue to grow due to user error. If the wallet owner never inherit his bitcoin ownership, the bitcoin will remain locked and can no longer be transferred. That means the same as lost bitcoin.
if bitcoin is lost due to forgetting the password or private key then the right way is to surrender and hope for a miracle to come to us, because we know how bitcoin works is not the same as conventional currencies which can reset passwords whenever we want.
As for the reduced supply, bitcoin prices will continue to set new records when there is a lot of demand.
As for the reduced supply, bitcoin prices will continue to set new records when there is a lot of demand.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
The Bitcoin lost cannot be recovered at all if you don't have access to your wallets or say you lost private keys for your coins. It's not that someone else will find them and take advantage of your funds unlike fiat btc lost simply reduce the total supply of 21 million coins.We have list of dormant bitcoin address with thousands of Bitcoin in them but we can't say they are lost or not because they are not active from past few years.Some people like German programmer who lost his 7002 bitcoins which are worth more than $220 million.Many in the past also has done the same mistake as they were not aware that btc will cross high level prices soon.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
The lost coins are.. well.. lost. Forever.
And indeed, the remaining ones will become increasingly scarce. Which is a good thing, since this makes them increasingly more valuable.
And you should not be too much worried about this, since bitcoin works with 8 digits after the decimal point, so the real total amount of coins is 2 100 000 000 000 000 (satoshi).
Woah, this is my first time learning that bitcoin has that much amount. I'm kinda wondering about that too actually, like what if more and more people lose their bitcoin, won't bitcoin become even more scarce? but after knowing that we have that many amount of bitcoin, i guess there's no need to worry. And what you stated is right, this is what will make bitcoin even more valuable, since it's limited, and become even more limited by the time people keep losing the coin, since there's no way we can get back bitcoin that we've lost already, gone forever.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
The coins on the wallets are lost forever and there is no way to retrieve it unless someone recovers the private keys, which is almost impossible to do so. As more coins are lost, bitcoin becomes more scarce as the number of bitcoins that can be mined is capped to 21 million. Which means, bitcoin will become more valuable as more people loses their coins. Imagine how many coins are lost every day. If you combine wallets that had few satoshis and the owner didn't care about it since it was worthless back then, we probably might have thousands of bitcoin in total. 
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
Consider it as burning of bitcoins for free
Yes, it does make bitcoin scarce since the number of bitcoins in circulation gets reduced.Since the supply is now decreased this increases the price of bitcoin in the long term.
Since no particular entity controls bitcoin the lost bitcoins are forever lost and cannot be accessed anymore.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
Yes, they will!Part of this brilliant creation is that the coins become scarcer over time. I remember reading a study saying that the daily burned bitcoins are more than the freshly mined ones. This means that every single minute passing on average, bitcoins become slightly scarcer.
Despite the ones that lost their old wallet.dat files and the purposely burned coins, you should consider the future losses from those who will pass out. If they haven't planned to inherit them, they're also gone forever.
Also, bitcoins are not tokens! They're coins!
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
I remember a thread here before asking how would one recover Bitcoins from a deceased person.Thing is unless one is holding it from like a web or online wallet that offers it, there could still be a chance but good luck complying with requirements to prove relations and connections.
Well if it is something held wherein the owner himself holds the private key then there's no hope unless s/he left a private key somewhere written.
I said earlier that there is no way to know how many bitcoins are lost. Anything else is pure speculation.
Why was this post deleted verses other replies here?
Why was this post deleted verses other replies here?
Because the main question in the OP was specifically concerning what will happen with the lost coins, not how many are lost. Whereas the latter(your response) was kinda unrelated to the main question.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
If the coins will never be accessed or moved again, that lessens the number of bitcoins that will ever be in circulation , increases scarcity and price (assuming demand for the coin outweighs supply).
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Bitcoin has been created so that you can manage your own funds without any intersection from others. So, if you lose control of your funds for any reason, it is completely unreasonable to expect someone else to control it. The coin you have lost control of is completely out of control, and will remain useless in the blockchain network for life. No one is able to recover the coin from your lost wallet if there is no private key / seeds backup.
I said earlier that there is no way to know how many bitcoins are lost. Anything else is pure speculation.
Why was this post deleted verses other replies here?
Why was this post deleted verses other replies here?
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
Just think of it as a burn token like most of the new alt-coin does.But for me it is better that way since it would still be the max supply but lesser circulating coin that would fetch a higher price in the future.
No need to worry about those coins since we couldn't do anything about it.
Bitcoins are not lost, they just sleep in the system. The total supply of Bitcoin has always been 21 million coins. Fewer Bitcoins in circulation means an increased scarcity of Bitcoin. In my opinion, many Bitcoins have been sleeping in wallets in the past because users forgot the security phrase, wallet password ...
Bitcoin is more scarce after each halving.
Thus, it can be seen that there are fewer Bitcoins while the demand for Bitcoin increases over time, which drives the value of Bitcoin to increase. We can be confident that Bitcoin will be worth $ 1 million in the future.
Bitcoin is more scarce after each halving.
Thus, it can be seen that there are fewer Bitcoins while the demand for Bitcoin increases over time, which drives the value of Bitcoin to increase. We can be confident that Bitcoin will be worth $ 1 million in the future.
Bitcoin does not deal with lost tokens. What is lost is lost forever until it is recovered by the owner or whoever gets hold of the private keys. Apart from that, lost Bitcoins will remain outside the access of anybody. Bitcoin is not an exchange or a central authority which could do something about them.
Bitcoin will remain to grow scarcer and scarcer each day not only because the demand is rising but also because the circulating supply is decreasing partly because of lost coins.
Bitcoin will remain to grow scarcer and scarcer each day not only because the demand is rising but also because the circulating supply is decreasing partly because of lost coins.
Yeah! things are not how you see it because the more it lost the more the value of each satoshi will increase and you cannot doubt that because a lightning network is developed for that kind of features. When people only sending satoshis in the future instead of the full amount of one bitcoin, you will realize that nothing has gone wrong. everything seems going to the right courses since it will give us good news and the price is our main concern here because the more we lost those total supplies, the more the price will reach its another all-time high.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
Yes, you are right about that. 21 million coins is not the real amount of coins which can truly be used as many coins were lost and probably won't ever be a part of the ecosystem anymore. However, there's nothing that can be done with it, we'll just have to live with whichever is still accessible. And it's not necessarily a big problem because we can just switch from thinking in Bitcoins to talking about mBTC or Satoshis more as the price grows. However, the fees will become very challenging as more people own smaller bits of BTC and the price gets higher. 
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
The Bitcoin lost cannot be recovered at all if you don't have access to your wallets or say you lost private keys for your coins. It's not that someone else will find them and take advantage of your funds unlike fiat btc lost simply reduce the total supply of 21 million coins.We have list of dormant bitcoin address with thousands of Bitcoin in them but we can't say they are lost or not because they are not active from past few years.Some people like German programmer who lost his 7002 bitcoins which are worth more than $220 million.Many in the past also has done the same mistake as they were not aware that btc will cross high level prices soon.Quote
"The Times reported that about 20% of Bitcoin existing supply appeared to be lost otherwise in stranded wallets"
This is indeed making Bitcoin really scare and if people keep losing their private keys we might see actual suplly to be around 15-16 million only instead of 21 million.This will push the prices further high as demand will surpass supply with huge numbers as nobody will be willing to sell at that time.So if you are holding Bitcoins at this time keep your keys safe in cold storage and funds in hardware wallets to safeguard your future.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
The lost coins are.. well.. lost. Forever.
And indeed, the remaining ones will become increasingly scarce. Which is a good thing, since this makes them increasingly more valuable.
And you should not be too much worried about this, since bitcoin works with 8 digits after the decimal point, so the real total amount of coins is 2 100 000 000 000 000 (satoshi).
Yeah, it should become more and more scarce to get more value. The crypto coins which are limited, in our discussion the BTC, is taking whole lot of energy to produce (mining) and it is costing more and more day by day. The coins which are lost forever are the security of bitcoin’s stagnant economy. Whether you call it indirect effect or direct contribution, it’s anyway healthy for us.
I don’t think developers would do anything about it and also they won’t break the laws of blockchain by breaking into it. So yeah even best for that matter.
What happens to all the coins in lost wallets in the Bitcoin system? If there are only a finite number of coins, won't they become increasingly scarce as people lose them over time?
This coins are lost and nothing will happen with them.
Bitcoin total supply is fixed at 21 million coins, circulating supply is around 18,684,000 but some research with FreeFloat supply is showing that 4 million bitcoins may be gone forever, and this can only be good for overall value and Bitcoin price.
Note that we can't know exact number of lost coins and some of them may be recovered and found in future, but people will probably lose more coins in future and bitcoin will be more scarce.
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