Hi guys,
As you may already be aware that there are people who simply lose bitcoins, and there is quite a lof of them!
For example: This guy lost his hard drive with 100k btc on it, another guy lost paper wallet with 30k btc on it and so on...
Now the question that i'm asking myself? Do they stay stuck in blockchain? Because if yes, than i see only about 8million bitcoins in circulation by the time they are mined..
Of course they stay on blackchain. And with time when computers will get stronger, they will be companies, that will search for this long lost wallets. Same as are now companies, that search fro sunken ships from oceans. Pulling them out and sell their Gold or other things to pay costs and divide profit. So some coins on today lost wallets are not lost forever.
If you mean searching cryptographically for the private key then for sure, no.
If you mean trying to track down who owned it, finding them, going through their old computers, and trying to find the private key, then probably no.
Finding hard drives in the junk yard, searching them for lost private keys, then also probably no.