Chainalysis analysis firm says that $20 Billion in Bitcoin is missing.
American startup Chainalys conducted a study on cryptocurrency wallets. According to the representatives of the project, the majority of digital money is lost due to the fact that users forget private keys. Wall Street Journal reports.
Chainalysis Analysis
According to the results of Chainalysis’ study, access to bitcoins worth $ 20 billion has been lost forever. Representatives of the company said that many users lose private keys, so they can not access their digital money, writes the Wall Street Journal.
Amount of lost bitcoins exceeds similar indicators of other digital assets. Chainalysis analysis claims that it is because Bitcoin has been in the market for longer than other cryptocurrencies.
Senior economist Chainalysis Kim Grauer said that the startup does not help users recover lost cryptocurrency. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to restore access to assets worth about $ 1 billion during the last two years.
Representatives of Wallet Recovery Services noted that the project helps users to access digital money in 30% of cases. They said that this depends on the correctness of the provided information, on the basis of which a private key was created.
The hypnotist Jason Miller helps clients remember the private key to enter cryptocurrency wallet. But he only works with six users a year. For his services, he takes 0.5 BTC and 5% of digital money in case of a successful recovery.
“Usually when they find their lost bitcoin, they’re so excited that they have no problem sending the commission on that reward”, he said.
We remind that Chainalysis already published such an analysis in late 2017. Then experts said that up to 3.79 million bitcoins could be irretrievably lost. In addition, the company states that a group of 1600 wallets controls a third of all bitcoins on the market amounting to $ 37.5 billion.
About Chainalysis
Chainalysis was founded in 2014. The company provides cryptocurrency exchanges, government structures and other clients with software for analyzing cryptocurrency transactions. It allows them to better meet regulatory requirements, assess the risks and identify questionable transactions. Among other things, the company took part in the investigation of the bankruptcy case of the Mt.Gox exchange. Chainalysis supplied software for the US Internal Revenue Service.