Lost Bitcoin and possible future scarcity

AprilioMP

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Quote from: alastantiger on May 11, 2024, 04:07:25 PM

Quote from: AprilioMP on May 11, 2024, 12:53:24 PM

Answers to discussion questions.

I do not really know whether it is lost forever because it is still possible that the owner of the wallet who is inactive due to the death of the owner has submitted or inherited a private key or seed phrase to other parties who are trusted.

It is likely that if upon the death of the owner, there was no hand over of seed phrase, then it is lost forever.

If the owner does not have time to submit or leave it to the person he trusts, then it can be justified disappearing forever. If the owner before dying could store well the private key or seed phrase in a special storage, it is likely that one day someone will meet him.

To avoid losing access forever, I chose to save it somewhere if I did not have time to pass down to the parties that I believe.
Bitcoin is a very important inheritance to be inherited.

Quote from: alastantiger on May 11, 2024, 04:07:25 PM

I remember the guy who lost his drive where he had his bitcoin wallet in a dump. He's been looking for it for years and cannot find it. It could also be considered lost forever.

The story of a person who lost Bitcoin due to being thrown into trash and a search for years after I read.

AmoreJaz

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Quote from: dothebeats on May 12, 2024, 12:21:29 PM

Quote from: Solosanz on May 12, 2024, 03:53:06 AM

Quote

Seed phrases should never be memorized, nor written on a mobile device or computer. They can be written on paper or in a book that shouldn't be visible to external members and should be strongly protected.

Remember, ink can fade over time https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/which-inks-fade-fastest/96814

And this is why you make multiple copies and store them somewhere safe, create new ones after a certain amount of time and repeat the process until you die or probably be unable to do it. It's a pretty straightforward approach to keep your funds safe, and even if inks fade, it will take a long ass time for it to do so, and you will always have time to replace those writings and create new copies of your seed/passphrase.

That is true, you can always find a way how to create copies of your seed phrases and secure it. In this forum, there are even threads how to safely and securely store your keys, your options on how to implement it. Below are just few of the threads that you can read related to this topic. But for sure, it is hard to memorize your keys and expect that you won't forget those keys.

How best to secure your Private Keys and/or Seed phrase
HOW DO I SECURELY STORE MY BITCOIN AS A BEGINNER?
Crypto Security - Additional Protection For Your Seed/Private Keys.
How do i make sure my Bitcoin Private Key is Random and secure?

Stalker22

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 12, 2024, 11:42:10 AM

I agree with the 15M value as I perceive that Bitcoin loss would keep happening even after halving.

What do you mean by "even after halving"? You know that this is neither the first nor the last halving?

Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 12, 2024, 11:42:10 AM

Very correct. Evaluating the number of lost coins can be very difficult, and it would be also wrong to think that all inactive wallets that holds Bitcoin are long lost. Recently, a long inactive wallet just made a transaction, which means it is certain that others might still safe.

Wait, a minute ago you were cool with a value of a 15 million Bitcoins? Whats that based on? You literally just admitted it is hard to estimate this thing!

sokani

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?

No, there are two possibilities. It might be that the owner has lost the private keys to the wallet or he's not yet ready to sell the Bitcoin.

Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

As we are not certain of Satoshi's return, should we be bothered about his dormant wallets?

Satoshi is not coming back to take ownership of Bitcoin, and I don't know why he hasn't move his Bitcoin all this years but I'm not really bothered about it. I believe there's a reason he left it there, he could have just use a mixer and send it to a new address.

Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?

Yes, lost Bitcoins are lost forever and will help to increase scarcity just the same way altcoins are burnt to reduce supply and increase scarcity of the token.

dothebeats

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Quote from: Solosanz on May 12, 2024, 03:53:06 AM

Quote

Seed phrases should never be memorized, nor written on a mobile device or computer. They can be written on paper or in a book that shouldn't be visible to external members and should be strongly protected.

Remember, ink can fade over time https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/which-inks-fade-fastest/96814

And this is why you make multiple copies and store them somewhere safe, create new ones after a certain amount of time and repeat the process until you die or probably be unable to do it. It's a pretty straightforward approach to keep your funds safe, and even if inks fade, it will take a long ass time for it to do so, and you will always have time to replace those writings and create new copies of your seed/passphrase.

Felicity_Tide

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Quote from: CryptoHeadlineNews on May 11, 2024, 02:57:19 PM

According to speculation, we are made to believe that Satoshi owns over 1 million Bitcoin, whereas according to the real time value of the total circulating supply of BTC at the time of writing this post is said to be 19,696,950 BTC, which means if we are to subtract Satoshi's acclaimed 1 million BTC, what will be left for both lost+unlost BTC currently in circulation will be 18,696,950 BTC.

I actually came across this speculation and wanted to use it in the post, but I thought it would be too contradicting as I don't have enough evidence to back it up. It's really good that you pointed this out.

You are totally right from your calculations. Assuming we are to subtract the speculated 1 million Bitcoin owned by Satoshi, then that's literally a significant amount of subtraction.

Quote from: 0t3p0t on May 12, 2024, 10:38:09 AM

1. Not all but majority of those long inactive wallets are gone forever for some reason.
2. Nah, if ever those dormant wallets will remain untouched or even moved then it is considered as burned Bitcoins that might help the scarcity of it.
3. Yes of course no doubt about that.
4. I personally have no idea on this but maybe it's more or less 15M Bitcoins.

I agree with the 15M value as I perceive that Bitcoin loss would keep happening even after halving. But that would be a reckless action from anyone who does that in the future when Bitcoin price is already above $200K.

Quote from: kryptqnick on May 12, 2024, 08:54:42 AM

Op is correct that it's hard to evaluate the number of lost coins, since we don't know why some wallets are inactive. I think of them as just inactive, and I don't view them as lost forever.
As for Satoshi's coins, we shouldn't focus on someone else's money.
Bitcoin is scarce by design, which will drive its price up if more and more people want to get some of it. But, thankfully, each Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million satoshis, so we can actually just refer to satoshis rather than bitcoins in the future if the price becomes that high and satoshis become a more relevant indicator of prices. So the issue is not as serious as it might seem at first glance, even if a significant part of coins is lost.

Very correct. Evaluating the number of lost coins can be very difficult, and it would be also wrong to think that all inactive wallets that holds Bitcoin are long lost. Recently, a long inactive wallet just made a transaction, which means it is certain that others might still safe.

Quote from: Rruchi man on May 11, 2024, 05:26:05 PM

Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?

The halving and loss of bitcoins are almost similar.

The two of them just finds a way to trigger scarcity

0t3p0t

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

1. Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?
2. As we are not certain of Satoshi's return, should we be bothered about his dormant wallets?
3. do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?
4. From a total of 21million total supply, can you attempt a prediction guess of the total number of Bitcoin that would be in active wallets after all Bitcoin has been mined?

1. Not all but majority of those long inactive wallets are gone forever for some reason.
2. Nah, if ever those dormant wallets will remain untouched or even moved then it is considered as burned Bitcoins that might help the scarcity of it.
3. Yes of course no doubt about that.
4. I personally have no idea on this but maybe it's more or less 15M Bitcoins.

kryptqnick

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Op is correct that it's hard to evaluate the number of lost coins, since we don't know why some wallets are inactive. I think of them as just inactive, and I don't view them as lost forever.
As for Satoshi's coins, we shouldn't focus on someone else's money.
Bitcoin is scarce by design, which will drive its price up if more and more people want to get some of it. But, thankfully, each Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million satoshis, so we can actually just refer to satoshis rather than bitcoins in the future if the price becomes that high and satoshis become a more relevant indicator of prices. So the issue is not as serious as it might seem at first glance, even if a significant part of coins is lost.

Solosanz

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

In addition, here are ...

Transferring to the wrong network or address (though some wallet software can detect this and notify the sender before the button is hit)

You can't send Bitcoin to invalid address because Bitcoin address has a checksum. By the architecture, Bitcoin already help the users to not send to wrong address since you can only send your coins to valid address (although it could be an address that you can't access.

In addition to your list, I will add "centralized exchange" as one of the reason why people lost their coins, when CEX bankrupt, people can't access their coins anymore.

Quote

Seed phrases should never be memorized, nor written on a mobile device or computer. They can be written on paper or in a book that shouldn't be visible to external members and should be strongly protected.

Remember, ink can fade over time https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/which-inks-fade-fastest/96814

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Quote from: kotajikikox on May 12, 2024, 01:19:46 AM

Halving is not primarily done to increase the price of bitcoin but it is only a consequence of such. Halving is done to counterattack inflation and in the process of it the bitcoin price hiked up.

This is due to the common and very well-known economic concept that less suppy = more demand. The rarer it is, the more expensive it is. On the other hand some bitcoin who are lost well they were just lost unless some people actually burn some coins to hike the price up.

Halving does not make Bitcoin deflationary in its circulation curve that is still inflationary.

How is the 21 Million Bitcoin Cap Defined and Enforced?

Halvings are like events to shock Bitcoin miners, weak hands will be shaken out; and to advertise Bitcoin on media with noise from halvings. It helps to bring Bitcoin to more people and convert some of them to Bitcoin investors. With more new investors, new capital, higher demand, price will increase.

The math is demand usually increases more than x2 and this helps price to rise more than x2 with each bull run after one halving.

kotajikikox

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Quote from: Rruchi man on May 11, 2024, 05:26:05 PM

Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?

The halving and loss of bitcoins are almost similar.

Just the halving tends to increase the value of bitcoins by reducing the number, scarcity due to loss of bitcoins also reduces the number of bitcoins available too, and as usual, a reduction in the available bitcoins will greatly affect positively the value of bitcoins available

Halving is not primarily done to increase the price of bitcoin but it is only a consequence of such. Halving is done to counterattack inflation and in the process of it the bitcoin price hiked up.

This is due to the common and very well-known economic concept that less suppy = more demand. The rarer it is, the more expensive it is. On the other hand some bitcoin who are lost well they were just lost unless some people actually burn some coins to hike the price up.

OcTradism

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How many bitcoins are lost?
Lost Bitcoin: 3.7 million Bitcoin are probably gone forever
What happens to lost bitcoins?

People have estimations on lost bitcoins that is about 3 - 4 million bitcoins but let's see
Old Bitcoin wallets keep waking up: How many of the 1.8 million ‘lost’ coins are really gone?

I don't mind how many bitcoins lost in accurate number because I know we never knows that number, but I know I received donation from people lost their bitcoins.

Quote from: satoshi on June 21, 2010, 12:48:26 PM

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.

pinggoki

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There's no certain way to determine if those lost bitcoins are lost or not because the logical way to look at things with this one is that we should know that or that there's a confirmation that it's really lost, the only certain amount of bitcoin that we've lost right now are those bitcoins that went to the burn addresses, those are for sure not going to be back in the circulation anytime soon. In regards to scarcity, probably the only thing that we can do about it is if we just don't think about it and just accumulate and hodl as much bitcoin as we can afford to do, we would eventually not worry about scarcity because when that happens and the prices goes up in an exponential amount, you would get the most benefit out of it. And if you did bought a huge amount of bitcoin through the consistent DCA through the years, you would be fine that you don't mind not getting back into bitcoin because of the profit.

peter0425

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

Discussion Questions

Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?

It depends let me use volcanoes as an analogy. Some volcanoes can be inactive for a while but then show signs of acitivity later on. With wallets, we do not know what the owner is doing or whether they are even alive so it’s difficult to say

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As we are not certain of Satoshi's return, should we be bothered about his dormant wallets?

Why? I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

Quote

do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?

Yes and that will drive up the price even more.

Quote

From a total of 21million total supply, can you attempt a prediction guess of the total number of Bitcoin that would be in active wallets after all Bitcoin has been mined?

No as a lot of factors would play in the adoption of bitcoin. Many will hold many will forget their wallets and so on and so forth.
[/quote]

Rruchi man

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?

The halving and loss of bitcoins are almost similar.

Just the halving tends to increase the value of bitcoins by reducing the number, scarcity due to loss of bitcoins also reduces the number of bitcoins available too, and as usual, a reduction in the available bitcoins will greatly affect positively the value of bitcoins available

hatshepsut93

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

Discussion Questions

Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?
do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?
From a total of 21million total supply, can you attempt a prediction guess of the total number of Bitcoin that would be in active wallets after all Bitcoin has been mined?

No I don't think that all inactive coins are lost, from time to time an address that wasn't used 10+ years suddenl activates. This doesn't even mean that someone is not selling coins for 10+ years - a user can have many addresses and they might have done a lot of sales in the past too.

If by scarcity you mean shortage then no, it won't cause such problems because there's enough units of account on the network.

What do you mean by "active wallets"? Coins that are moved frequently? Or coins that the owner has access too?

serjent05

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Quote

Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?

No, there are instances that wallets that were inactive for more than 10 years suddenly become active just like what is written on this link: https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/7744610888034.

Another thing, just like earlier stated, we have no way of determining whether an idle wallet is just dormant or it was already a lost wallet

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As we are not certain of Satoshi's return, should we be bothered about his dormant wallets?

I don't since I respect the right of a person over his property, I do not know about you though...

Quote

do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?

Obviously, simply by knowing the law of supply and demand, once the supply is cut there is always a scarcity in the market especially when the demand keeps on pouring in.

Quote

From a total of 21million total supply, can you attempt a prediction guess of the total number of Bitcoin that would be in active wallets after all Bitcoin has been mined?

It is easy to predict, let alone attempt since we can just utter some random numbers and the prediction is done. Take note, predictions do not need to be precise and correct so anyone can predict any numbers and not have to worry if they will realize or not. But if you are talking about precisely predict or estimate the number then by all means it is a no.

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

Discussion Questions

Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?
As we are not certain of Satoshi's return, should we be bothered about his dormant wallets?
do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?
From a total of 21million total supply, can you attempt a prediction guess of the total number of Bitcoin that would be in active wallets after all Bitcoin has been mined?

I wanted to answer some of your questions briefly - but I'm sure you probably already know what the answers to your questions are.

As long as you still hold the key, seed or whatever allows you to access your wallet at any time - then your bitcoin will not be lost.
It's normal to fear a big drop due to a massive sale of from address containing thousands of bitcoins - but you should already have a plan for when to cash out your investment in bitcoin.
Yes - that's clear.
I don't know - if you have a crystal ball, try to predict it yourself.

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Quote from: Felicity_Tide on May 11, 2024, 11:06:47 AM

Discussion Questions

Do you think all dormant wallet (long inactive wallets) are gone forever?
As we are not certain of Satoshi's return, should we be bothered about his dormant wallets?
do you think lost Bitcoin can cause Bitcoin scarcity in the future?
From a total of 21million total supply, can you attempt a prediction guess of the total number of Bitcoin that would be in active wallets after all Bitcoin has been mined?

There is an influence but not a cause that makes us afraid of the development of bitcoin, because in the journey of bitcoin's development to the present, there are sometimes stories of early wallets going back to the past- there are many reasons for that.

And we should also consider the fact that the number of active bitcoins accounts for the majority, so there is no need to panic/panic is what people choose. I also find this as humorous as the way we talk about the tragedy of WW3+, solar storms, quantum computers,... and there are tons of reasons why others question it, but back to the reality is that we need to own bitcoin before a bad situation arises to feel how it affects us.

Not in Town

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People die and bitcoin gets scarcer.

Topic: Lost Bitcoin and possible future scarcity (Read 350 times)