Many bitcoin enthusiasts see Bitcoin's strength as stemming from the limited total currency supply of 21 million Bitcoin.
Of these, 21 million bitcoins, 18.57 million were mined.
Of these, 18.57 million Bitcoins, 10%, or 1.85 million Bitcoins, have not moved in 10 years or more, according to Glassnode.
Why?
Glassnode data shows that 1,857,721 Bitcoin has remained immobile from its address for more than 10 years.
While some extremists and critics of Bitcoin view from the angle that the inability to move this huge amount is the commitment of the scammers to what they are preparing to crack the bitcoin bubble.
While other, more realistic analyzes indicate that these cryptocurrencies may have had their holders dead or lost private access keys.
It is worth noting that Satoshi Nakamoto, founder of Bitcoin Aden, retrieved about 1.125 million Bitcoins (according to various estimates), which have not been transferred for more than a decade until now.
Since no one knows where he is, who he is, or even if he is still alive, it is certain that the fate of these digital currencies is still mysterious at best.
On January 3, 2019, Glassnode began showing the number of Bitcoins that had not been transferred for 10 years.
This is because exactly 10 years before the Bitcoin network was launched, Nakamoto began mining his early digital currencies.
But even if we take the Nakamoto cache out of the equation, another 2.6 million Bitcoins could still be lost forever as well.
And, as we indicated, this could be for many reasons, including the loss of private keys, damage to hard drives, deliberately burned Bitcoin, or even the death of people without inheriting their digital wallets to anyone.
In total, it is likely that at least 3.7 million Bitcoins or nearly 20% of all Bitcoins currently extracted have disappeared and will never be recovered.
At current prices, $ 83.3 billion worth of Bitcoin has been forgotten.