Recently, as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) reaches the 20,000 USD mark, related topics have also become popular. However, approximately every 10th Bitcoin (BTC) hasn’t been moved in 10 or more years, according to crypto metrics platform Glassnode.
Most of these coins are probably long “dead”—lost forever due to various circumstances, so no one will ever be able to use them.
This could be due to a multitude of reasons, including misplaced private keys, broken hard drives, intentionally burned Bitcoin, or even people dying without bequeathing their wallets to anyone.
In total, at least 3.7 million Bitcoin—or roughly 20% of all currently mined BTC—is most likely gone and can never be retrieved.
In addition, 60% of the bitcoin circulation is held by individuals or companies because they have never sold more than 25% of their bitcoin assets and are marked as long-term holders; there are about 3.5 million coins left, nearly 20 % Bitcoin is often circulated in various exchanges and belongs to trading use.
At current prices, that’s $83.3 billion worth of Bitcoin sunk into oblivion.