Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2018 January 10

= January 10 =

Bitcoins
This might seem an odd place to ask this, but it's something that came to mind while I was watching the final episode of Major Crimes last night. The villain had transferred 15 million dollars to a personal Bitcoin Wallet. Later he was gunned down. If they addressed what happened to his Bitcoin Wallet, I didn't catch it. So my question is, if the owner of a Bitcoin Wallet dies, what happens to it? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:14, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Unless someone else has access to their wallet, the amount of Bitcoin in the wallet would be considered "lost" and essentially removed from circulation. There doesn't exist any way to recover lost Bitcoin, whatsoever.  https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#what-happens-when-bitcoins-are-lost RedLinkJ (talk) 22:27, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The important comment there would seem to be "lost bitcoins remain dormant forever." So unless the villain shared his info with someone, there's no mechanism for anyone (including government?) to get to it. Am I correct in supposing that a Bitcoin wallet could be willed to someone, such as a relative? Or shared in some other weay? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Think of it like a pirate treasure. If the map (i.e. Bitcoin wallet) is given to someone, or someone copies/steals it, they can go and excavate the treasure whenever they feel like it. But if the map is lost, the treasure is pretty much gone forever out of the circulation, and the rest of the world's supply increases in value by a tiny bit. 93.136.41.133 (talk) 05:28, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Doesn't this belong on the Math Desk? —Tamfang (talk) 08:27, 12 January 2018 (UTC)