$ 3.4 billion in Ethereum disappeared forever due to errors users

According to Coinbase, the number of Ethereum that has disappeared for good rises to 913.111 tokens. Conor Grogan shared that estimate on Sunday on X, told that it is mainly human mistakes and bugs that ensure the disappearance of Ethers.

Number of ‘lost’ Ethers 44% up since March 2023

According to a comparable report from March 2023, there was still a loss of 636,000 ethers at the time. In the meantime, 44 percent has been added.

So the most important lesson from this is to be sharp if you decide to get your tokens moving. Especially by checking carefully to which addresses you send tokens. A lot will go wrong there.

It is also sometimes bugs in computer code that cause problems. For example, 306,000 ETH V Erloren went because of the Parity Multisig Bug at the Web3 Foundation.

Quadriga, a Canadian stock market platform, also lost 60,000 ETH as a result of errors in a smart contract. And finally, Akutar lost 11,500 ether due to an incorrect mint from Non-Fungible tokens (NFTS).

“To be clear, this number of $ 3.4 billion to Ethereum is significantly less than the actual amount of lost tokens. It only covers the moments at which Ethers are fixed forever,” said Grogan on his report.

How can Ethers be lost even more?

For example, he cannot see how many people their private keys are lost. It is also possible that Ethers were accidentally sent to an address where nobody can reach, or, for example, wallets from the early days that people no longer have access.

Ethereum is a special animal in terms of supply. In theory, the amount of ethers that comes into circulation is flexible. However, since September 2022 the number of coins in circulation is very stable.

That has to do with the switch to proof-of-stake, after which Miners received a lot fewer ethers as a reward for finding a block. EIP-1559 also helps a hand.

That was an improvement proposal that resulted in part of all paid transaction costs to a digital stake. The ethers that end up there will never be in circulation again.