Nearly 1% of Ether Supply Permanently Lost Due to Bugs and User Mistakes
The amount of Ether (ETH) permanently inaccessible due to user errors and software bugs has now surpassed 913,000 ETH, equivalent to around 0.76% of its circulating supply, according to Conor Grogan, head of product at Coinbase.
The amount of Ether (ETH) permanently inaccessible due to user errors and software bugs has now surpassed 913,000 ETH, equivalent to around 0.76% of its circulating supply, according to Conor Grogan, head of product at Coinbase.
Grogan revealed the updated figure on Sunday via X, estimating the current market value of these lost tokens at over $3.43 billion. The losses reflect Ether trapped forever as a result of coding flaws or operational mishaps rather than coins burned through protocol mechanisms.
Based on my research, a minimum of 913,111 Ethereum is lost forever due to user error. This is 0.76%+ of ETH supply, or $3.43 billion in lost funds
If we include EIP‑1559 burned ETH (5.3M), then >5% of all ETH ever made ($23.42B) have been permanently destroyed pic.twitter.com/IlTduN7Kzx
— Conor (@jconorgrogan) July 20, 2025
When adding the 5.3 million ETH burned under Ethereum’s EIP-1559 since its introduction in 2021, the total ETH effectively removed from circulation rises to around 6.2 million ETH, Grogan noted. This represents 5% of the current 120.7 million ETH supply, valued at approximately $23.4 billion.
Compared to a similar estimate published in March 2023, the amount of ETH lost through bugs and mistakes has jumped by 44%, up from 636,000 ETH reported at that time.
Despite this sharp increase, Grogan observed that the main culprits remain unchanged, including the Parity Multisig bug affecting the Web3 Foundation, which trapped 306,000 ETH, the QuadrigaCX incident, where 60,000 ETH was lost to a faulty smart contract and the Akutars NFT minting failure, which locked 11,500 ETH
Grogan stressed that these figures underestimate the true scale of inaccessible ETH since they do not include tokens lost through forgotten private keys or abandoned Genesis wallets.
“To be clear, this $3.4 billion number significantly undershoots the actual lost/inaccessible ETH amount — it just covers instances where Ethereum is locked forever,”
“For example, it doesn’t cover all lost private keys or things like Genesis wallets that have been forgotten,”
he added.
In a recent report by CoinShares, investor appetite for crypto-backed investment products remained strong in June despite flagship digital assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) experiencing significant price drops.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
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