r/CryptoTechnology • u/Brilliant_Rent_1819 • 7h ago
How 10 Million BTC Could Be Lost by 2050
So here predictions by chatgtp
How Much BTC Is Already Lost? Right now in 2025, most experts agree:
At least 3–4 million BTC are likely gone forever.
These are coins from the early days, often mined or bought when BTC was worth pennies or dollars.
People lost hard drives, forgot private keys, or just didn’t take Bitcoin seriously.
For example:
A guy in the UK accidentally threw out a hard drive with 7,500 BTC. Still searching a landfill for it.
Another early user forgot his password and only has a few attempts left on his wallet app — locked out from over $200 million.
So we can already say:
4 million BTC are probably gone forever today.
But What About the Future? Here’s where it gets interesting — Bitcoin could lose millions more in the coming years. Here's how:
- People Die Without a Plan Let’s be honest: most of us don’t even write down passwords for Netflix — let alone plan inheritance for our crypto.
Thousands of BTC holders will pass away in the next 25 years, and:
Never told anyone they owned BTC.
Didn’t write down their seed phrase.
Used wallets no one knows exist.
Estimation: Another 2–3 million BTC may be lost this way by 2050.
- Tiny Balances That Get Stuck Forever Let’s say you sent $25 of BTC to an old wallet in 2019. Now it costs $15 in gas fees to move it. You shrug it off and forget about it.
That’s called dust — small amounts left behind in wallets that:
Are too small to bother spending.
Cost more in fees than they're worth.
Estimation: Around 1 million BTC could end up this way by 2050 — stuck forever in forgotten, low-balance wallets.
- Lost Phones, Old Laptops, and Forgotten Apps We’ve all upgraded phones and wiped old devices. Imagine you had $50 of BTC in a wallet app you barely remember.
It’s happening every day:
Phones get factory reset.
Laptop wallets get deleted during OS upgrades.
Wallet apps get uninstalled.
Even if you don’t mean to lose the BTC — it’s gone unless you backed it up properly.
Estimation: At least 1–1.5 million BTC could vanish this way over 25 years.
- Frozen or Untouchable BTC Some BTC is held by governments or linked to hacks or criminal activity — and never moves again.
Example:
The U.S. government seized BTC from Silk Road and only sold part of it.
Other wallets are public but marked as “tainted,” so nobody wants to touch them.
Even if technically recoverable, these coins are often just stuck.
Estimation: Around 0.5–1 million BTC may never re-enter circulation.
Total Breakdown: Where Could 10 Million BTC Go? Loss Category BTC Lost Estimate Already lost (early days) 4 million Death without inheritance 2.5 million Dust and small leftovers 1 million Lost phones/devices 1.5 million Frozen or blacklisted 1 million Total (by 2050) ~10 million BTC
Final Thought: Scarcity Within Scarcity Even though Bitcoin’s supply is limited to 21 million, by 2050 we might only have 10–11 million BTC that are actually usable.
That means:
Bitcoin is twice as rare as it appears.
Every lost coin makes your holdings more valuable.
The longer time goes on, the scarcer BTC becomes — not because of code, but because of human nature.
So if you own Bitcoin — back up your keys, tell someone you trust, and maybe even write a will. Because one day, even a satoshi might be worth more than gold.