How Many Bitcoins Have Been Lost?

Welcome, and thank you for being part of the MyZucoins community! Dive into some important crypto, finance and tech news to stay ahead.

Sinking wallet chained in the ocean shows the idea of wallets being lost forever without backups, like treasure sunk to the bottom of the sea

This continues our recent part 1 on crypto wallets and safety. We recommend reading that first.

Back to the question—It's actually hard to answer.

Many media outlets, including the New York Times, covered this during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns in their article "Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes—Bitcoin owners are getting rich because the cryptocurrency has soared. But what happens when you can’t tap that wealth because you forgot the password to your digital wallet?"

"Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 percent, or 3.7 million Bitcoin—currently worth around $113 billion (as of 13 July 2023), appear to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets, according to the cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis." Read more here.

While there is no doubt enormous amounts of cryptocurrencies have been lost over the years, pinning down a half-decent estimate is really hard. Most estimates use metrics based on factors such as these: “Mined Bitcoins that have not moved in over ten years are considered permanently lost by many analytics companies when estimating the number of lost Bitcoin.“

However, just because someone hasn't moved coins from a wallet, of course, doesn't mean they are lost.

For example, Bitcoin's anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto's coins haven't moved for over 10 years in their wallets, so they are often included in these "lost Bitcoin" stats.

Of course, there's another counterpoint here.

There will be some percentage of those early, tech-focused adopters who held Bitcoin for such a long time they didn't need to sell many Bitcoins. As the coin price rose over the past decade, fewer and fewer coins needed to be sold to fund their lifestyles. Perhaps they stored a sizeable chunk of Bitcoin in other "everyday" wallets. This way, the bulk of their coins in those other wallets remained untouched. While these Bitcoin still remain in seemingly dormant wallets, they could easily be used as long-term storage wallets.

Another great point to investigate in a future newsletter is: How many cryptocurrencies have been sent to the wrong wallet address? Or wrong bank accounts for this matter? No doubt these are large numbers too that are underreported.

The main point is that many, many people have lost their cryptocurrency wallets and even though the real numbers are hard to nail down, backing up is key. Let's get into it below.

Zucoins Wallet Backup And Restore Tutorial

To protect your Zucoin wallet and ensure the security of your private and public keys, follow these instructions for backing up your Zucoins wallet app and restoring it if needed:

How To Backup Your Zucoins Wallet To A File?

  1. Open the Zucoin Wallet: Launch the Zucoins wallet app on your device.
  2. Go to Settings: Locate the settings menu, represented by a gear icon in the top-right corner of the zucoins wallet screen.
  3. Access Backup Feature: Find the "Backup Wallet" option in the settings menu and click on it to open the backup feature.
  4. Initiate Backup: Follow the wallet app's instructions, choosing a secure location to save the backup file.
  5. Create Backup: Allow the wallet app to generate the backup file.
  6. Store Backup Securely: Once the backup is complete, keep it somewhere secured! For example, store the backup file in a safe and secure location, after moving it to an encrypted USB drive, or strongly password-protected folder. Repeat the process as necessary to have backups of your backups.

How To Restore Your Zucoins Wallet From A Backup File?

  1. Open the Zucoin Wallet: Launch the Zucoins wallet app on your device.
  2. Restore Wallet: Use this wallet app to open the backup file, following the app's instructions for restoring your wallet. Do not attempt to open the file outside of the app.
  3. Load Past Transactions and Contacts: The wallet app will restore past transactions and contacts, but note that transactions made after the backup will not be included in the restored version. This is because most of your wallet data is stored locally on your device and not on a centrally-managed database. Hence, it's a good idea to regularly do wallet backups.

Important Information

  • The backup file contains private and public keys. Its name includes the date/time of download and the first ten characters of the backed-up wallet address, to make them easier to find.
  • In effect, the Splitchain network stores a cached copy of your true balance. Your wallet will display the latest balance based on the two most recent transactions upon restoration. The caching network does not retain your full transaction history to download.
  • Regularly update your backup to ensure that it reflects the most recent state of your wallet.
  • Keep your backup file and its contained private key secure to prevent unauthorized access to your funds. Never share this file.

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All the best,
Rob & Peter
MyZucoins

Disclaimer: Of course, this is not advice, financial or otherwise. It’s also important to consider the risks and challenges associated with any potential benefits.

 

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