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Topic: How many lost Bitcoins are out there? - page 2. (Read 1230 times)

legendary
Activity: 3248
Merit: 1070
December 10, 2015, 03:17:37 AM
#11
the usual estimate say around 3M, probably a bit more or less, but i believe it's a good number to take in consideration, and this without counting the 1M from satoshi

that for all we know they could be lost too
legendary
Activity: 1946
Merit: 1007
December 10, 2015, 02:39:23 AM
#10
There is a really good thread out there that discusses just this: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/lets-add-up-the-known-lost-bitcoins-7253

The beginning is probably more serious, as it is much harder to believe "losing 15,000 coins" today than it was in the beginning.
member
Activity: 64
Merit: 10
December 10, 2015, 01:39:41 AM
#9
If satoshi don't appear again, its safe to assume that 1million+ additional BTC are lost.

I am wonder is Satoshi has left that in a will to some kind of charity or benevolent fund upon his death, long from now and if hopefully bitcoin is a success.  Maybe he isn't spending them because he didn't do this for the money and doesn't need the money. Spending them now could put possibly harm what he is trying to do with bitcoin.
legendary
Activity: 3528
Merit: 7005
Top Crypto Casino
December 10, 2015, 01:31:50 AM
#8
I think I have about 13,000 satoshi lost forever on a blockchain.info wallet that I abandoned.  Cry

I lost some LTC and DOGE too.  Cheesy
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 4418
Crypto Swap Exchange
December 10, 2015, 01:16:14 AM
#7
At least 2k BTC are verifiable: https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr. If satoshi don't appear again, its safe to assume that 1million+ additional BTC are lost. If more BTC were in circulation today, BTC would be much less valuable obviously. Shortage of coins is not a concern since BTC are divisible.

I disagree, the 1 million aren't lost if the address is known. It's the address owner's prerogative whether they want to spend that coin or not...but the coins aren't lost, they're very much found and visible.

I know some of early coins were earmarked as "test" and essentially thrown away - no one is supposed to have the addresses for those coins. And there's probably a lot of early addresses used for faucets and things that have been forgotten and have relatively large balances.
Satoshi might have lost the private keys and he might have not. All except the 50BTC from genesis block can be spent but with no movement of any of the coins for the past 5+ years, I highly doubt he would have the private keys to though. A private key is needed to spend those 1million+ coins, without them, it is stuck. There are much more lost coins like my poor 0.04BTC but we can't verify those since some are used as cold storage and won't be used for a long time. Of course, nothing is impossible.
hero member
Activity: 506
Merit: 500
December 10, 2015, 12:58:38 AM
#6
adding up the entire orderbook of visible bitcoin on every exchange, including alt exchanges will probably yield very surprising numbers. There's a hellava lot of coins out there that are just sitting off exchanges.
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1528
No I dont escrow anymore.
December 10, 2015, 12:57:28 AM
#5
At least 2k BTC are verifiable: https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr. If satoshi don't appear again, its safe to assume that 1million+ additional BTC are lost. If more BTC were in circulation today, BTC would be much less valuable obviously. Shortage of coins is not a concern since BTC are divisible.

I disagree, the 1 million aren't lost if the address is known. It's the address owner's prerogative whether they want to spend that coin or not...but the coins aren't lost, they're very much found and visible.

I know some of early coins were earmarked as "test" and essentially thrown away - no one is supposed to have the addresses for those coins. And there's probably a lot of early addresses used for faucets and things that have been forgotten and have relatively large balances.

I dont think address means what you think it means. All possible addresses are known whether they have been used or not. The important question is whether or not someone has a private key to be able to spend the coins. This is what is commonly understood as "lost". Its known where they are, they just cant be spend.
hero member
Activity: 1106
Merit: 638
December 10, 2015, 12:53:30 AM
#4
At least 2k BTC are verifiable: https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr. If satoshi don't appear again, its safe to assume that 1million+ additional BTC are lost. If more BTC were in circulation today, BTC would be much less valuable obviously. Shortage of coins is not a concern since BTC are divisible.

I disagree, the 1 million aren't lost if the address is known. It's the address owner's prerogative whether they want to spend that coin or not...but the coins aren't lost, they're very much found and visible.

I know some of early coins were earmarked as "test" and essentially thrown away - no one is supposed to have the addresses for those coins. And there's probably a lot of early addresses used for faucets and things that have been forgotten and have relatively large balances.
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 4418
Crypto Swap Exchange
December 09, 2015, 11:13:59 PM
#3
At least 2k BTC are verifiable: https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr. If satoshi don't appear again, its safe to assume that 1million+ additional BTC are lost. If more BTC were in circulation today, BTC would be much less valuable obviously. Shortage of coins is not a concern since BTC are divisible.

Coins lost after the last checkpoint can be recovered but it is harder for coins lost before the last checkpoint to be recovered, clients have to be changed.Neither of these are feasible. CMIIW.
hero member
Activity: 994
Merit: 1000
PUGG.io
December 09, 2015, 11:05:13 PM
#2
Loosing access to a Bitcoin wallet sucks because it is virtually impossible to recover the coins.
Since these lost Bitcoins never get circulated they cause the value of a Bitcoin to change. Do you think something can be done about these lost coins?
There are same kind of threads asked again and again.
@Op please use the search function in the top right corner of the forum, before creating a new thread so as members will not be answering same question again and again.
Btw no offence OP
newbie
Activity: 31
Merit: 0
December 09, 2015, 08:28:57 PM
#1
Loosing access to a Bitcoin wallet sucks because it is virtually impossible to recover the coins.
Since these lost Bitcoins never get circulated they cause the value of a Bitcoin to change. Do you think something can be done about these lost coins?
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