For those that don’t know, there is a set number of Bitcoins that can be produced, and that number is 21 million by the year 2140. So of course, the price is based on that set scarcity and is baked into the market value of Bitcoin. But what if the actual number of Bitcoins is much lower than that. Lower by millions of Bitcoins?

That’s what researchers at Chainalysis have claimed in a recent report. Chainalysis is the company that is known for working with government agencies to track blockchain use. Using their proprietary analytical software to determine how long certain coins have been dormant, especially after a fork they claim to know that those coins are probably “lost” forever. Meaning that they were bought and stored away at some point by someone many years ago and the owners have since lost the ability to retrieve them. According to Chainalysis the number of lost Bitcoins is close to 4 million! That would mean that total supply of Bitcoins could be only 17 million in the future.

On top of this, the company also believes that more Bitcoins will be lost in the future, but not at the same rate as in the early days due to the fact that the value and popularity has risen so much that people are much more careful with how they store their Bitcoins. However, some will still be lost over the years so the number of total Bitcoins could actually be lower than 17 million when all is said and done.

The question is whether or not this is already priced into the market or as we approach the total number of Bitcoins released, investors will realize they are even more scarce than originally believed.