Lost forever: where and why do bitcoins go to die?
The market volume of cryptocurrency is today hundreds of billions of dollars. Most of this market is represented by bitcoins. On some wallets there are thousands and thousands of bitcoins. Most coins are usually on the wallets of various exchanges (Bitfinex has over 100,000 coins on the wallet). Some users also have a lot of bits, but there are those who own only tenth, hundredth or thousandths of bitcoin. Anyway, there are many hundreds of thousands of wallets in the system, if not millions. For example, representatives of Blockchain.info claim that they have 10 million users.
Some users sometimes forget access data. Someone, unfortunately, dies as a result of an accident or for natural reasons. Sometimes people just throw away drives with “cold” depositories of their coins. In general, anything happens, and already mined, but lost in one way or another, the cue ball, although considered to be part of the same maximum amount of 21 million coins, it is impossible to return and use them in any way. How many of them, forever lost cryptomonet?
The total number of extracted bitcoins is more than 16 million .
')
Now the reason why Bitcoins go to the category of “dead coins” is either the loss of access to the wallet, or the death / illness of the wallet owner, plus several other less important reasons. Since the cue ball rate is very high, now there are almost no people who are starting to participate in the system for the sake of interest, buy something or mine and throw it at their hobby. Even a tenth or one hundredth of Bitcoin is money that hardly anyone wants to throw away.
But a few years ago, when bitcoins cost almost nothing, many started mining them or buying them, and then, not seeing any prospects in their work, threw their wallets, often forgetting access. Actually, who cares about cryptocurrency, for which 10,000 coins you can buy pizza (well, even two)? Only geeks, and even then not everyone. Hard discs and CDs with wallets were thrown away, computer equipment with them broke, leaves with recorded accesses were thrown away. It can be assumed that most of the Bitcoins became “dead souls” at the very beginning of the development of the entire system, before the cue ball began to cost something in terms of money.
It is difficult to say for sure, but you can calculate. In order to start counting, we need a methodology and algorithm for calculating lost bitcoins. The easiest way to do this is if you analyze the activity of the system wallets. The transactions are transparent, which means you can “see” which wallets are living, working, and which are not involved in the overall work, although some funds lie on them.
Now some wallets are inactive, because they are used as a piggy bank. The owner slowly adds Bitcoins and waits for the appreciation. But what if the wallet remains inactive from the moment when the bitcoins have already started to cost something? For example, since 2013. Probably in this case, with a high degree of probability, such a wallet can be considered dead, because then, in early 2013, the Bitcoin rate began to grow, and very quickly. Over the past few years, probably, any owner of a bitcoin wallet on which at least some funds lie would not have survived and conducted a couple of transactions. If this does not happen ęź· can be considered a wallet dead.
Here you can see that counting all those tens of thousands of wallets with the minimum amount of cryptocurrency on them (less than 0.01 Bitcoin) makes no sense. It will only take time, but it will not affect the overall picture. Experts estimate that on such wallets there can be no more than 2000 BTC in total.
If we use the calculation method described above, it turns out that about 3 million coins have been lost to bitcoins. Maybe some of them will return to the market, but it is unlikely that all at once. In addition, speaking of Bitcoin, it should be understood that Bitcoin Cash associated with them has been lost - all the same 3 million. At the current exchange rate, this is more than 14 billion US dollars, a very large amount for any company.
If we consider that the total bitcoin in the system can be 21 million, it turns out that about a seventh of the coins are lost forever. It is almost impossible to restore them. Sometimes, extremely rarely, the owners of the wallets who have forgotten the password, it is possible to restore access . But this happens very rarely and is unlikely to change the current situation.
Some users sometimes forget access data. Someone, unfortunately, dies as a result of an accident or for natural reasons. Sometimes people just throw away drives with “cold” depositories of their coins. In general, anything happens, and already mined, but lost in one way or another, the cue ball, although considered to be part of the same maximum amount of 21 million coins, it is impossible to return and use them in any way. How many of them, forever lost cryptomonet?
The total number of extracted bitcoins is more than 16 million .
')
Why are they lost?
Now the reason why Bitcoins go to the category of “dead coins” is either the loss of access to the wallet, or the death / illness of the wallet owner, plus several other less important reasons. Since the cue ball rate is very high, now there are almost no people who are starting to participate in the system for the sake of interest, buy something or mine and throw it at their hobby. Even a tenth or one hundredth of Bitcoin is money that hardly anyone wants to throw away.
But a few years ago, when bitcoins cost almost nothing, many started mining them or buying them, and then, not seeing any prospects in their work, threw their wallets, often forgetting access. Actually, who cares about cryptocurrency, for which 10,000 coins you can buy pizza (well, even two)? Only geeks, and even then not everyone. Hard discs and CDs with wallets were thrown away, computer equipment with them broke, leaves with recorded accesses were thrown away. It can be assumed that most of the Bitcoins became “dead souls” at the very beginning of the development of the entire system, before the cue ball began to cost something in terms of money.
How many are lost?
It is difficult to say for sure, but you can calculate. In order to start counting, we need a methodology and algorithm for calculating lost bitcoins. The easiest way to do this is if you analyze the activity of the system wallets. The transactions are transparent, which means you can “see” which wallets are living, working, and which are not involved in the overall work, although some funds lie on them.
Now some wallets are inactive, because they are used as a piggy bank. The owner slowly adds Bitcoins and waits for the appreciation. But what if the wallet remains inactive from the moment when the bitcoins have already started to cost something? For example, since 2013. Probably in this case, with a high degree of probability, such a wallet can be considered dead, because then, in early 2013, the Bitcoin rate began to grow, and very quickly. Over the past few years, probably, any owner of a bitcoin wallet on which at least some funds lie would not have survived and conducted a couple of transactions. If this does not happen ęź· can be considered a wallet dead.
Here you can see that counting all those tens of thousands of wallets with the minimum amount of cryptocurrency on them (less than 0.01 Bitcoin) makes no sense. It will only take time, but it will not affect the overall picture. Experts estimate that on such wallets there can be no more than 2000 BTC in total.
Enough. How many?
If we use the calculation method described above, it turns out that about 3 million coins have been lost to bitcoins. Maybe some of them will return to the market, but it is unlikely that all at once. In addition, speaking of Bitcoin, it should be understood that Bitcoin Cash associated with them has been lost - all the same 3 million. At the current exchange rate, this is more than 14 billion US dollars, a very large amount for any company.
If we consider that the total bitcoin in the system can be 21 million, it turns out that about a seventh of the coins are lost forever. It is almost impossible to restore them. Sometimes, extremely rarely, the owners of the wallets who have forgotten the password, it is possible to restore access . But this happens very rarely and is unlikely to change the current situation.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/370891/
All Articles