True. I've been 'tipped' bitcoin percentage points on reddit a handful of times, but I fear they've long since joined the .5 million "lost" because at the time I had no idea how/no wherewithal to deal with them. I was reading earlier that cashing out bitcoins is also now quite difficult if you have a significant amount, because of anti-laundering limits placed on transactions revolving around dumping bitcoins. Takes days if not weeks of steady transacting to get rid of large numbers legally (i.e. through coinexchange).
I've seen estimates that it's much higher. I've read that there are over 30k addresses that have exactly 50BTC and no transactions, created more than two years ago. The thought is that many of these are mining rewards at lost addresses. That's possibly 1.5M there. I personally sent 4 BTC into the ether, back when they were around $2.True. I've been 'tipped' bitcoin percentage points on reddit a handful of times, but I fear they've long since joined the .5 million "lost" because at the time I had no idea how/no wherewithal to deal with them.