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Topic: Losing private key with tens of thousands of BTC - page 2. (Read 3527 times)

sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
I might start scouring ebay and craigslist for old hard drives.  Grin
sr. member
Activity: 266
Merit: 250
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would not affect the market price. It would be impossible for anyone to know for sure that you had truly lost your private keys as it is impossible to prove a negative like that. It would also be very difficult to prove that you even ever held the private keys to that BTC address. Although someone considered trustworthy could potentially sign a message saying that the address does in fact belong to you.
full member
Activity: 218
Merit: 101
I do feel for people who lose this much.

legendary
Activity: 1806
Merit: 1090
Learning the troll avoidance button :)
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

Because such a small amount of the bitcoin supply is on all the exchanges combined there would be no effect on the market.

I think less than 1% of the supply of Bitcoin is on every exchange in the world.

You could loss 100,000 and it wouldn't even get priced in.



That said if it was on an exchange like Mtgox again and the private key and Bitcoin supply were claimed loss it would have an immediate chilling effect on the marketplace.

However to my knowledge there are no Bitcoin exchanges that have that much volume left and only Dooglus has a significant stash of reserves.
member
Activity: 104
Merit: 10
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would not have any effect.

The only way this would change the price of BTC is if this person were to buy more BTC to replace his/her holdings.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
One day people will mine old landfills for hard drives like they mine gold   (just kidding Cheesy)

Don't laugh.  I can envision people in the future actually forming ventures to do exactly what you describe.

The team would go into old landfills and look for hard drives from the period 2005 - 2012 and scan them for Bitcoins.

People form ventures today to find old pirate gold hoards in the Caribbean and around the Gulf of Mexico.
hero member
Activity: 672
Merit: 500
There is no sure way of confirming the Bitcoin are really lost forever. Coins which are sitting in an address for a long period, could be a cold wallet, not lost. Besides, the amount is so low, it will not affect the market at all.
member
Activity: 93
Merit: 10
Market prices mainly manipulated by few big capital. 10k btc is not enough to make a big impact.
STT
legendary
Activity: 4102
Merit: 1454
One day people will mine old landfills for hard drives like they mine gold   (just kidding Cheesy)


This could relate to the float of a stock.   They only count the shares often traded, the fact that bill gates has 10% held of microsoft for years is not counted in the worth of the share so far as I know.   If he sold them then its included in the market capitalisation

I think the marketcap site started doing this partly, excluding premine and other coins that have not yet released the coins properly
member
Activity: 74
Merit: 10
There is 5000 btc sitting on some junked laptop in a landfill somewhere that I threw out. I dont even give it a second thought.
legendary
Activity: 1988
Merit: 1007
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It wouldn't affect it at all right now unless they were actively selling their coins. It's supply and demand; if they weren't supplying, the loss doesn't affect supply.
legendary
Activity: 1330
Merit: 1003
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.
It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

That's very true, or it could cause them to stop buying more Bitcoins out of frustration, but there wouldn't be any direct effect.
The direct effect is the change of his marginal utility of bitcoin. If you have less of an asset then your marginal utility of that asset increases. Someone with 1 BTC is more likely to buy more BTC than someone with 10.000 BTC, all else equal.

It is rational to want bitcoin more when you have less. This effect is different from random emotional reactions towards the loss.

I see your point. I would still consider that an indirect effect, however, since he may or may not choose to change his purchasing behavior, and he could do so at any point (now, 5 years from now, etc). There is no effect that can be directly attributed to those Bitcoins no longer existing.
sr. member
Activity: 323
Merit: 251
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.
It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

That's very true, or it could cause them to stop buying more Bitcoins out of frustration, but there wouldn't be any direct effect.
The direct effect is the change of his marginal utility of bitcoin. If you have less of an asset then your marginal utility of that asset increases. Someone with 1 BTC is more likely to buy more BTC than someone with 10.000 BTC, all else equal.

It is rational to want bitcoin more when you have less. This effect is different from random emotional reactions towards the loss.
legendary
Activity: 1330
Merit: 1003
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.
It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.

That's very true, or it could cause them to stop buying more Bitcoins out of frustration, but there wouldn't be any direct effect.
sr. member
Activity: 323
Merit: 251
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.
It could cause the owner of those BTC to become a buyer.
hero member
Activity: 617
Merit: 528
Or tossing a hard drive with 7500 BTC into the dumpster:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/hard-drive-bitcoin-landfill-site

(still my fav. story)
legendary
Activity: 1330
Merit: 1003
Say someone lost their private key containing 10000+ BTC... How long would it take for that to affect the market price of bitcoins since there will be less of a supply of bitcoin and more demand?

It would only mean that the effect of that Bitcoin being sold at some point in the future would not occur, but the market at this time would not be affected.
legendary
Activity: 2422
Merit: 1451
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I don't think it would even affect the market at all. Over here, https://blockchain.info/address/1CounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXUWLpVr

2k bitcoin destroyied for counterparty's IPO. Did it make the market's movement to go up? I don't think so.
hero member
Activity: 616
Merit: 500
think it won't, because if he has private keys it is not on exchanges, so the influence in price has already priced(pun intended)
member
Activity: 89
Merit: 10
When bitcoin was worth $0.02 some people already mined It and mined thousands of It but they probably did It for curiosity only and had no idea that It will go so big, so It's just a gamble, someone lost private keys or dropped their hard drives into bin having no idea that It will be worth so much and other lucky people saved It till now. This Is past and I doubt anyone would make mistakes Like that now days.  So there are lucky and unlucky people  Smiley
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