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> It's people who leave their money on crypto exchanges that lose their coins. People who hold their own coins lose them as well. It was estimated that 3.7 mi
by lottin 4y ago
> It's people who leave their money on crypto exchanges that lose their coins.
People who hold their own coins lose them as well. It was estimated that 3.7 million bitcoin have been already lost irreversibly [1]. That's a staggering number. It's roughly 20% of the entire supply.
[1] https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/bitcoin-market-data-exchanges-trading/ https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/bitcoin-market-data-exc...
- zarzavat 4y agoThey equate “lost” with “not moved in 5 years”. That’s a strangely short cut off — I would use 10 years instead. It’s completely possible for coins to sit around for 5 years in cold storage addresses without being touched.
- redox99 4y agoIt's funny because just this week I moved some BTC from a wallet I hadn't touched since 2013. And I used it to pay for something pretty mundane. In retrospective, the idea of someone whipping their "10 year old wallet" just to pay for something trivial is a bit amusing to me.
- random_kris 4y agoBe careful with statements like this to not dox yourself too much
- redox99 4y agoMeh. I'm sure there's a lot of transactions like that.
- sebzim4500 4y agoYeah but some of my own coins are considered to be 'irreversibly lost', simply because I haven't touched them in five years. I don't see why I should take this seriously.
- lottin 4y agoIt's an estimate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimation
- sebzim4500 4y agoThere comes a point where an estimate turns into a guess though. I would argue they are way past that point.