Lost bitcoins . A problem for adoption ?

[Kate]

Bitcoin we all know it very well and we use it and we all love it a lot. Bitcoins are held in wallets and can be transferred from one wallet to another easily and these wallets are secured with private keys.

But what would happen if 10% of the whole bitcoin was lost in a wallet whose private key is unknown and can't be returned.

Will this cause a drop in the number of adopters because 10% of bitcoin is no more.

What do you think ?

I believe adoption will be a problem if this happens. And this will eventually be the cause of the death of our bitcoin

[cointikka]

People think Bitcoin as an asset, they do not want to spend it but store it, because of it's increasing Fiat value and that is one of the main reason why adoption of Bitcoin is not gaining any momentum, Further more in it's current position Bitcoin cannot be used as way of making payments because of the scalability issue and if Bitcoin is ever to become a fully-fledged alternative to currently existing payment systems, it will obviously need to be able to compete with them. As of now, it’s not even close. This is another reason why adoption of Bitcoin is getting hampered. 

If 10% of Bitcoin gets lost in a wallet then that will be another issue for mass adoption.

 

[williamshennie9]

It would just mean that everyone else's coin are worth more. It is the same with lost fiat currency. If I lose a billion dollars (that is now out of circulation) everyone becomes relatively richer (that's how deflation happens). So if people lose bitcoins, see it as a good thing for you

[Sqryx]

I Strongly believe that Bitcoin would surivive that, it would be a "black hole" in the market but Bitcoin is too big to go down for that. Maybe they would refund the 10% it would be shit ton of money but Bitcoin would survive.

[nattekut]

I think this is already the case. I did not find the link but I read an article a couple months ago. There is a significant percentage of BTC that is on wallets where peoples forgot or lost the private key, wallets of very early adaptors with a couple 1000 BTC that lost there wallet, keys or so and then talking about the millions of wallets that for example contain 0.000000001BTC. Like me for example I have a lot of different wallets containing a tiny amount of BTC that is just not transferrable. I know there are millions of such wallets. This can all be considered as some kind of lost BTC cause people just forget about it.

 

but I do not consider it as a bad thing. BTC supply Is endless and capped at 21,000,000. If for example 2 million of those aren't in circulation it will increase of the remaining amount of BTC. Unlike in fiat there is no possibility to create more BTC after the 21 million. so the more lost BTC the better for us!!!!

[rajamishra]

hello kete its not an a issue for death of bitcoin ,its black hole someone told before ,every day some of our satoshis dropped into wrong wallet due negligence of users or some other reasons.another chances are there so many other coins backup the btc now a days and adoption not stopped somewhere else,  day by day its growth may be slowly.some other news also in markets some countries are tried to  accept in mainstream payment system of digital currency.hopefully so soon it may accepted by bankers too. 

[bmg]

With the lesser amount of btc going around it only makes the ones available more valuable in price.

So some may see it as less and others see it as more.

[Kate]

18 hours ago, williamshennie9 said:

If I lose a billion dollars (that is now out of circulation) everyone becomes relatively richer (that's how deflation happens). So if people lose bitcoins, see it as a good thing for you

If there are notes that goes out of circulation then no doubt the country would print more because they need to supply everyone of their people with cash to survive. 

[HumberRolls]

That's why you children have to keep your wallet securely so that nobody can steal or hack the private key, if you have bitcoin try to sell you already have your cash safe

[Kate]

35 minutes ago, HumberRolls said:

That's why you children have to keep your wallet securely so that nobody can steal or hack the private key, if you have bitcoin try to sell you already have your cash safe

It is not about the security of the wallets it is that when you have bitcoins in a wallet and then somehow something happens to you ( god forbid ) then that is when this problem will occur.

[wry]

This is a topic that has been discussed since the beginning of bitcoin.  Since many users expect the hundreds of thousands of coins held by Satoshi to be "lost" it is not just an academic discussion.  Since there are only 21 million Bitcoin ever, lost coins are essentially a gift to everyone who holds bitcoins, they become that much more valuable.  There's a quote by Satoshi himself to that effect.

[barbaris]

I do not see anything wrong with this, since any money can be lost. Bitcoin is a fairly strong currency and many large companies and investors believe in it.

[rdbase]

Alot of people have lost a certain of bitcoin at one time or another and I would think it would equal out to 10% or more in their entire life time. This could be due to losing private keys or a corrupt hard drive where the wallet was or you just forgot your paraphrase.

But even at this 10% loss of your bitcoins held  which does happen to everyone, no denying it, people still use bitcoin. It is just like saying if you lost money by dropping some change on the street you didnt realize happened or just looking in someones couch for quarters. You will find some.

[williamshennie9]

10 hours ago, Kate said:

If there are notes that goes out of circulation then no doubt the country would print more because they need to supply everyone of their people with cash to survive. 

Yeah, that is why inflation happens, because of more money being printed. So if more money is in supply = inflation. Less money in supply = deflation. You see my point? The same applies to bitcoin.

[ceastem]

The price will surely go up!

That's why even Satoshi himself said that lost coins will make other people richer

I just hope some whale loses or mistransfer loads of bitcoins accidentally so that the price will go up

[Kate]

True his quote makes sense now but what id that the lost coins percentage is actually like 30% or something above that ? Lol that would just be bizarre because then btc holders will be rich af.

[HumberRolls]

hahaha good bitcoin is very famous for today since its price is very valued but it will always be lost

[neich]

There is a significant percentage of BTC that is on wallets where peoples forgot or lost the private key, wallets of very early adaptors with a couple 1000 BTC that lost there wallet, keys or so and then talking about the millions of wallets that for example contain 0.000000001BTC. Like me for example I have a lot of different wallets containing a tiny amount of BTC that is just not transferrable.

[FotisNt]

Well, thats pretty bad for the bitcoin network, many people forgets low amounts in their wallets, which keeps increasing. Also people might die with a huge amount of bitcoins in forgotten wallets etc. I think that this might be a future problem.