Figures as of 30 August 2026 · sources at the foot of the page
Forgotten passwords, discarded hard drives, dead holders, and a founder who never spent. A meaningful slice of all bitcoin is out of circulation forever.
| Source | Estimate | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Chainalysis | ~3.7 million BTC | Coins untouched for 5+ years (2020 study) |
| Glassnode | ~3 million BTC | Long-dormancy heuristics |
| Lower-bound estimates | ~2.3 million BTC | Stricter dormancy windows |
Call it 2.3 to 3.7 million coins - roughly 11 to 18% of the 21 million cap. The single largest presumed-lost trove is the roughly 1.1 million BTC commonly attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, mined in the network's first years and never moved since.
Lost coins are indistinguishable on-chain from patiently held coins - the method is dormancy, and dormancy is a probability, not a proof. Coins presumed dead occasionally wake after a decade and make headlines precisely because it is rare. The truth is knowable only one way: a coin is lost if its keys no longer exist anywhere, and no blockchain can see that.
Subtract the mid-range estimate and the effective supply is nearer 17 million BTC than 21. Every number on this site tightens accordingly: the even world share drops toward 0.002 BTC per person, and the wholecoiner ceiling shrinks by millions of seats. Losses also continue quietly - and with new issuance halving toward zero, there are years in which more bitcoin is probably lost than mined. Scarcity, in other words, is still increasing.
The wholecoiner club: smaller than you think.
Where a tenth of a coin puts you.
The million-sat milestone, in context.
Fewer than 150,000 addresses on earth.
Rarer than a football stadium crowd.
Why estimates span 106 million to 500 million.
Satoshi, exchanges and the biggest addresses.
Your fair share is about 245,000 sats.
Why new supply keeps shrinking to 2140.
Sources: Chainalysis via Decrypt (2020); Glassnode via Ledger Academy and BitGo; Satoshi holdings are the commonly cited Patoshi-pattern estimate. Figures as of 30 August 2026. Not financial advice.