Authored by Jeff John Roberts and Nicolas Rapp via Fortune.com,
Just as gold bars are lost at sea or $100 bills can burn, bitcoins can disappear from the Internet forever.
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When all 21 million bitcoins are mined by the year 2040, the actual amount available to trade or spend will be significantly lower.
According to new research from Chainalysis, a digital forensics firm that studies the bitcoin blockchain, 3.79 million bitcoins are already gone for good based on a high estimate – and 2.78 million based on a low one. Those numbers imply 17% to 23% of existing bitcoins, which are today worth around $9,000 each, are lost.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 26, 2017.