Timothy Peterson: "6 million bitcoins are lost forever"

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According to estimates by an analyst at the consulting company Cane Island Alternative Advisors, today the number of irretrievably lost bitcoins has reached 6 million coins.

Timothy Peterson stated thatOf the 19.3 million Bitcoins mined as of March 25, 2023, only 13.3 million BTC are in circulation. In the next 100 years, only 1.7 million coins can be mined, the analyst recalled. And he suggested that during this time, with a high degree of probability, at least another million bitcoins will disappear, since as new coins are created, old ones will be lost.

I estimate that, as of this week, 6 millionof the 19.3 million #bitcoin mined have been irretrievably lost. (See related research at https://t.co/ULso76SXjD) This means 13.3 million remain with only 1.7 million left to be mined over the next 100+ years. In that time, it’s… pic.twitter.com/WpiSNT9TSF

— Timothy Peterson, CFA CAIA (@nsquaredcrypto) March 25, 2023

In September 2020, Peterson publisheda note in which he suggested that about 1,500 BTC are lost every day. Taking into account these calculations, in a few years the number of bitcoins in circulation will be less than 14 million coins. The researcher tried to draw attention to the fact that the data on the market capitalization of Bitcoin is incorrect, since it includes those same irretrievably lost coins.

Many Bitcoin enthusiasts have doubtedPeterson's hypothesis. For example, analyst-blogger The Bitcoin Researcher insists that in fact the volume of circulating bitcoins is 15.5 million coins. The user justified his conclusions with the assumption that bitcoins could be lost if they have not been moved in the last seven years.

According to the analytical service Glassnode, last year the number of addresses in the Bitcoin network exceeded 1 billion, despite market volatility and bankruptcies of cryptocurrency lenders.