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Bitcoin’s value can be boiled down to one specific quality: accountability.

We know precisely how many bitcoins have been mined at any point in time. We also understand which addresses have access to those coins, as well as how long they’ve been held without moving.

What we don’t know is how many coins are lost forever — BTC tied to private keys that have been destroyed, misplaced or otherwise not passed on after death and so on. 

Some estimates suggest around 20% of all BTC won’t ever move again, the equivalent of 3.7 million BTC ($318 billion). 

We’ll never uncover the…

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