Research: most bitcoins are irretrievably lost
Delphi Digital, which positions itself as a cryptocurrency research boutique, conducted its own investigation to find out what happens to those "silent owners" of bitcoins that do not carry out transactions with them.
The company proved that even the hodlers who hold cryptocurrencies for many years, there is sometimes a desire to transfer assets from one wallet to another, which may be due to the reluctance to "store all the eggs in one basket", and with the implementation of any payment transaction.
The researchers conducted their detailed analysis on the basis of a breakdown of the volume of "real" bitcoins (UTXO). That is, we looked at those bitcoins that are held without movement for discrete periods of time, with a step value of one quarter. As a result of the analysis on the principle of big data, Delphi Digital concluded that the hodlers who invest in bitcoins for a long time, has its own dominant specific behavior as a certain type of investors.
Basing their arguments on the basis of the analysis of the UTXO index, Delphi approach was noticed that the number of bitcoins, which had not carried out any action, has fallen markedly in 2017. That is, a significant number of hodlers reacted to the record increase in the price of bitcoin that year, having made any operations with the cryptocurrency.
Thus, if the Hodler, who are holding bitcoins for more than one year, had nothing to do with their assets when they gradually came to the historic maximum in 2017, we are talking about the fact that the owner is likely to have lost access to their cryptocurrency. Thus, at least 50% of all bitcoins are abandoned — this conclusion is made in Delphi Digital, and exactly one in five bitcoins is such.
In Delphi Digital agree in this regard with the assessment made by fellow analysts at Chainalysis, who estimate the minimum value of orphan bitcoins in the range from 2.78 to 3.79 million BTC.
Speaking about the forecast of the crypto-currency market, Delphi Digital believes that by the end of March this year bitcoin will go to the minimum value for the period from December 2017, after which growth will resume, as again there will be a maximum activation in the number of addresses for which any transactions will be made. Meanwhile, the volume of transactions with bitcoins has recently reached its maximum value since January 2018.