Key takeaways
- Researchers estimate that 3.1 million BTC would be permanently lost by June 20, 2026.
- River’s report for 2025 reveals that 1.57 million BTC were lost in custody, mostly before 2020.
- El Khatib and Legout confirmed that only 3,197.61 BTC had been burned through April 2024.
THE discussion This happened 16 years ago today, June 21, 2010, in a Bitcointalk thread titled “Dying Bitcoins.” One user had asked if forgotten wallets meant the network would shrink over time. After responses from Laszlo Hanyecz and Gavin Andresen, Satoshi responded at 17:48:26 UTC with a line that is still circulating today:
“Lost coins only make other people’s coins a little more valuable. Consider it a gift to everyone.”
The quote from Satoshi’s lost coins is less of a prediction than bitcoinThe price of the currency would increase and scarcity would instead be observed to intensify as coins disappear from circulation. Yet the premise ultimately rests on the same assumption: that bitcoin would retain enough value that people would want to hold it in the first place.
Satoshi also said Laszlo that computers would have to become about 2^200 times faster before recovering or stealing lost coins could overtake mining. This statement was a scarcity argument, not a measurement. This leaves open a question that researchers are still trying to answer in 2026: how many bitcoins have actually disappeared.
Several reports put this number at around 3.1 million BTCwith a central range of 2.7 million to 3.9 million BTC and a larger envelope of 2.3 million to 5.25 million BTC. Against current circulating offer of 20,045,680.42 BTCfollowed by Glass knot as of June 20, 2026, this midpoint equates to approximately 15.5% of all mined mines. bitcoin. It should be noted that the estimate of 3.1 million so-called “lost” people bitcoin cannot be proven with certainty.
What can we really prove?
Very little is provable on the chain. THE blockchain can confirm that some coins are not spent. It cannot confirm that an unmoved part is lost rather than kept.
The most difficult data point comes from a Study 2025 by Mohamed El Khatib and Arnaud Legout, who used entropy filtering and machine learning to identify burn addresses. Their count: 3,197.61 BTC permanently destroyed via block 840 682, dated April 24, 2024. Add Bitcoinit’s unusable 50 BTC reward of genesis, and the provable ground barely moves.
Anything above this threshold is based on probabilities and speculation, not evidence. Since the publication of the 2025 study, other bitcoin have been sent to known burning addresses, where coins are effectively removed from circulation and should not be spent again.
Dormancy paints a bigger picture
Glassnode age supply data for June 20, 2026 shows 3.557 million BTC intact for more than 10 years, 1.690 million BTC falling in the range of 7 to 10 years, and 1.479 million BTC in the 5 to 7 year old age group. This represents approximately 5.25 million BTC dormant for more than seven years and approximately 6.73 million BTC dormant for more than five years.
Glassnode treats coins inactive beyond seven years as “Inert feed“, calling it probably lost. But the old coins always moving. Treating every dormant part as missing overstates the case.
The Patoshi Factor
Much of the debate concerns Bitcointhe first miner by Sergio Demian Lerner original research identified a single dominant miner active in 2009 and 2010, producing what became known as the “Patoshi” pattern, totaling approximately 1.1 million BTC.
Search BitMEX later argued that the figure is too high, bringing it closer to 700,000 to 750,000 BTC. Whale Alert, like reported by Bitcoin.com News pushed the estimate in the other direction, to 1,125,150 BTC on the first 54,316 blocks.
Whether analysts consider this stash lost, dormant, or simply unallocated, the total estimate of lost coins increases by several hundred thousand. BTC.
Failures of self-custody and exchanges
River’s guard in 2025 report estimates 1.57 million BTC permanently lost to self-custody, with 98% of these losses occurring before 2020. River also notes over 3 million people. BTC lost or lost during trading as a whole, although he cautions that public lawsuits and bankruptcies only support low estimates.
You may be wondering how coins can be lost due to self-custody. In reality, this can happen in several ways. For example, a person can install a new bitcoin wallet and neglect to save the seed phrase related to funds. If that person’s phone is later deleted, access to the BTC held in the wallet could be lost permanently.
Self-custodial wallet providers do not have these seed phrases, meaning the responsibility for saving the mnemonic phrase lies entirely with the user.
Mount Goxthat’s around 740,000 BTC the loss illustrates the problem. Some of these pieces were subsequently recovered and are now subject to a rehabilitation distribution plan, meaning that the original loss figure no longer represents permanent destruction.
One of the most well-known examples of loss involved Welsh computer engineer James Howells, who accidentally threw away a laptop hard drive containing the private keys at 7,000 to 8,000 bitcoin. The vehicle ended up at Docksway landfill in Newport, Wales, where it remained buried under hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste.
Over the years, Howells assembled a team of specialists and secured financial support for an excavation effort, but Newport City Council repeatedly refused permission, citing risks associated with methane. gasasbestos and toxic leachate. In January 2025, the High Court rejected his legal challenge, finding that the case had no realistic chance of success.
At current prices, Howells’ lost cache is valued at nearly half a billion US dollars.
What this means for traders
For anyone holding bitcoindormancy data reinforces a scarcity scenario that exceeds the absolute ceiling of 21 million. If even the 2.7 million conservatives BTC The figure is valid, the actual circulating supply is significantly lower than the overall figures, a detail that long-term holders may find more relevant than short-term price fluctuations.
The debate is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Engraving Address Proof remains tiny. Dormancy measurements remain probabilistic. And the coins of the Patoshi era, regardless of who controls them, remain intact. Many believe that Nakamoto’s pieces will never move, but that remains a matter of opinion rather than established fact.
