At least 913,111 Ethereum tokens valued at $3.43 billion have been permanently lost due to irreversible user errors and coding vulnerabilities, representing 0.76% of ETH’s entire circulating supply.
The largest single incident stems from the 2017 Parity Multisig wallet bug which permanently locked 513,746 ETH worth $1.93 billion. Additional significant losses include 250,000 ETH disappeared through misplaced private keys and another 85,476 ETH rendered inaccessible in defective smart contracts.
When accounting for EIP-1559 fee burns, over 5.3 million ETH worth $23.42 billion (equivalent to 5% of all Ethereum ever created) has been permanently removed from circulation.
These irreversible losses highlight critical security challenges in digital asset management and underscore systemic vulnerabilities within blockchain ecosystems, raising significant concerns about protective mechanisms for high-value transactions.