Chainalysis study finds 1.5M Bitcoins permanently lost

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, in collaboration with the American economic journal Fortune, reported that around 1.5 million Bitcoins are considered permanently lost. The firm noted that about 1,798,681 Bitcoins, inactive for over ten years and valued at approximately $121 billion, likely make up 8.5% of the total Bitcoin supply and are presumed lost. However, some wallets that have been inactive for the past 14 years have recently resumed on-chain activities, hinting that these lost Bitcoins could re-enter the market. The number of lost Bitcoins is expected to stabilize around 1.5 million as more long-dormant wallets reactivate. This estimate does not include about 1.1 million Bitcoins in roughly 30,000 wallets linked to Bitcoin's anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. If Satoshi's holdings were counted, the total number of dormant Bitcoins would be about 2.9 million.