The cryptocurrency market plummeted in the last few days.
After soaring and delivering profits for investors, people lost more than $100 billion in Bitcoin.
If you lose your Bitcoin, you will never retrieve it back.
Bitcoin is a circulating asset, there are limited coins in the market. There are not lost, but they complete a cycle.
“Unlike fiat currencies like the US dollar, Bitcoin was designed to have a limited supply,” said Trezor Blog.
“While more bank notes can always be printed by the Federal Reserve, new bitcoin cannot be issued once all 21 million coins have been mined.”
According to Cane Island Digital Research, investors lose 4% of Bitcoin annually.
Reports illustrate that Bitcoin has 21 million coins in existence. Nevertheless, Cane Island Digital Research says that just 14 million coins circulate.
The New York Times published that there are 18.5 million bitcoin mined and estimates that 20% of those coins are lost.
The value of lost or inaccessible Bitcoin is around $140 billion, as the New York Times describes.
How is Bitcoin destroyed?
Generally, people commit mistakes when storing or sending Bitcoin.
The other situation is when Bitcoin is stolen.
“People frequently lose bitcoin due to how they store them. For instance, many people store their bitcoin online on exchanges,” said Trezor Blog.
“In doing so, they are relying on the exchange to keep their assets secure. While there are certainly reputable exchanges operating in the world today, there have been a plethora of cases throughout the last decade where exchanges have stolen their users’ assets or failed to prevent hackers from doing so.”