New research from cryptocurrency analysis firm Cane Island has revealed a striking fact about Bitcoin’s supply dynamics.
According to the company’s report, more than 6 million Bitcoins will be irretrievably lost by mid-2025. This number was just over 4 million in 2020. If current trends continue, the amount of lost BTC is expected to exceed 7 million by September 2025, meaning that more than a third of all Bitcoins ever mined will have permanently left circulation.
According to Cane Island, these losses are mostly caused by the loss of private keys, the physical destruction of hardware wallets, or users passing away without leaving heirs. This also includes BTC being sent to irrevocable addresses through “burning” transactions.
The research notes that the annual BTC loss rate has decreased in recent years. The annual loss rate, which was 4% in 2020, decreased to 3.3% by 2025. This decrease was achieved thanks to multi-sig wallets, institutional custody solutions, and increased user education. However, the absolute loss number naturally continues to increase over time.
The Cane Island report also includes an important caveat: Bitcoin’s reported market value does not reflect reality. Since the calculations take into account the entire supply, about a third of which is no longer in economic circulation. The researchers suggest that the true market value could be up to 50% lower than current calculations.
Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto touched on this issue on the Bitcointalk forum in 2010 with the following words:
“Lost coins make everyone else’s coins a little more valuable. Think of it as a donation to everyone.”
This perspective, combined with Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and limited supply model, reinforces the idea that coins leaving circulation increase the scarcity value of the remaining BTCs.
*This is not investment advice.
