Bitcoin Forum

We all know that there can be no more than 21M bitcoins. We also know that every day some bitcoins get lost forever. That means that they still exist on the blockchain, but no one can access them since the keys are lost. I don't think that this is a right thing. We should recover these coins somehow, and that issue could be addressed eventually. I suggest adding a special flag which would add a certain period of time after which the wallet with that flag set by the wallet owner should be declared as public property. The transactions that credited these bitcoins to such a wallet should be cancelled (just like correcting entries are made in a real ledger), and the coins should be moved to a new wallet, for example, to finance scientific research...

In this way, we can "resurrect" some of the lost bitcoins for the common good. To avoid asking and answering the same things all over again, I add important clarification below:

this is the loop hole of bitcoins and its blockchain .and i think in the future run wehn the top  programmers will find a good solution for this problem and recover all the bitcoins that have been lost  then it would be awesome .

Taking something that doesn't belong to you is theft.  I suggest you take your criminal idea and character flaw and go create an altcoin that implements your "We'll steal your stuff after a while" idea.  I'm not interested in having your horrible idea in my bitcoin, and since bitcoin is a consensus system you'll never get such a change made anyhow.

Since this topic has been discussed HUNDREDS of times in the past 8 years, can we please just lock this thread now?  Perhaps anyone that posts in this thread with a sig ad after this should just automatically be perma-banned?

As to me, you are confusing different issues

No one is talking about stealing here. In fact, in many countries there are laws regulating how the lost things (for example, buried treasures) can be claimed as the property of those who found them. If I remember correctly, in Denmark, if no one lives in an apartment for a year, it can be taken by anyone, and the previous right of ownership is revoked


I guess the answer should be a definite no. But you can leave, of course

sorry but some people are hoarding.for god reason. be it pension. be it future inheritance for their kids.
but you seem to not care so:

ok. let me get your bank account and however much you deposited 10 years ago.. thats mine now
have any relatives that invested into gold and has sat in a vault 10 years ago.. thats mine now

Wait.. lets raid your pension pot because that is in an account for 40 years... thats mine now
wait. your grandma has a gold chain she left sat in her jewellry box.. thats all mine now

wait theres a house on a street in your name thats older than 10 years.. thats mine now

as for saying funds should go to "to finance scientific research..." LOL sorry but banks are happy to throw millions of dollars at blockstream, circle, bloq, blockchain.info .. they dont need to rip apart bitcoins immutability/fungibility to fund those 'research' businesses.

i do laugh at your 'research' word you threw in.. anyone can claim they are researchers and never have to produce results/products/services for such funding.

seriously flawed plan you have and this idea is not new.. many greedy a-holes have dreamed up a free pay day due to other peoples pension/investment/inheritance hoards.

no one should touch other people funds no matter how long its held. many people have put paper wallets in a 'time capsule' or a LastWill for their offspring. and it should stay with them

if you disagree.. then give all YOUR property/funds over 10 years old and practice what you preach by you being the first to hand over YOUR property.

lets see you backtrack and try to reword it to protect your own property/pension reserves from being handed out

That's the main bitcoin problem. maybe cause of it hasn't government's support or cause of all operations are provided through the net, but bitcoin is not protected from scammers and hackers at all.

I think it is better to don't do anything because it can affect the price of bitcoin if they are planning to reverse bitcoin from the address when they are sent the bitcoin.. And this is the advantage of bitcoin because no one can access and touch that bitcoin to sell it that can affect the value of bitcoin so if no one can touch it even we are selling all our bitcoin it has still a value because some bitcoin are lose. and no one can sell it.

You obviously don't get it, as always

I'm not talking about taking all bitcoins from the wallets that existed for more than 10 years. I'm talking only about those wallets that have been absolutely dormant for that period of time. I mean no transactions, no signed messages, absolutely nothing. If you think that 10 years is too small (which may well be), let's take 50 years (and hope that Bitcoin will still exist after half a century)


You are in for a big surprise. If nobody claims the funds in a bank account they are taken by the government. In different countries different terms are set, but these accounts do expire after a certain period of inactivity. I guess the same applies to bank vaults

Why you government support Buddy. If they make btc as a centralized money and these political idiots create more loop holes how they created in their constituency rules.

I think it is better if lost bitcoins will be lost forever.Blockchain has no isses of failed delivering and losing bitcoins.Dead and untouched wallets must remain as is because it is someones property we dont have rights to do that

First, there is no way to technically distinguish between lost coins and purposefully unmoved coins.
They both are the same and it is not reasonable to make people move their coins every so often in
order to prove that they still have control. If in the event, a protocol change is proposed that users
will need to transfer their coins to "safer addresses" that is done as a security measure, not just so
that the devs/miners know "we can't take them back" from them.

This mindset contradicts one of the reasons why Satoshi created Bitcoin in the first place.
Your money is your money and in theory, no one can take it away under any circumstances.
Comparing what regulated banks are allowed to do should not be applied to Bitcoin ever.

With regard to lost coins Satoshi didn't say what you said but:

He did not entertain reabsorbing them, since that would contradict his foundational ideology.

I think I have a good solution for this, never lose your private key, problem solved.
If you are familiar with online world and then using bitcoin you should know to always keep the private keys in a safe place and failing to do so is no one else's fault but your's.

I don't think you can try to cancel old Bitcoins because there is no way to know if they are lost or just saved. Some people could save Bitcoins for 50 years to give to their children or grandchildren.

This is true for banks. And in my country same policy applies; Government takes the fiat money from inactive bank accounts, but there is a significant difference. National governments have the control of fiat money circulation and have the right to take these money for common good and transfer the funds to accounts that belong to this country and not to people. But using bitcoin this is different. Let's say that we have 50 bitcoins dormant in blockchain we do not know to whom they belong. These coins after some period (time is not the point) must somehow be put into circulation. Maybe someone can transfer it to his own wallet or if sold to exchange market someone will take fiat money. As you proposed to finance scientific research or I say a NGO. But who will decide that? This is my question

So what if someone decides to save for 51 years or put something away for the next generation, what do you just steal them.  its this sort of thinking that most people using bitcoin are trying to get away from.  MY MONEY IS MY MONEY, KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF IT.   >:(

I think the lost Bitcoins should be added to the blockchain again to be mined by miners. Each X years a new chain could be created with the lost BTCs.

Makes no sense to lose some amounts of Bitcoins forever because someone lost it. If this happen frequently, someday we will have few Bitcoins circulating and the most coins lost forever.

Deleting (returning bitcoin into blocks) bitcoins after a longer period of time of unusing the wallet they're on. That period should be around 15 years.. 10 years seems like, maybe, a reasonable amount of time for someone to store or unleast thy'd probably remember after 10 years if they've not lost the key or login info and 50years is a little too much imo.

There is no way to. Just because they have not moved does not mean they are lost

This will never be done because we will never know if the coins are lost or just saved. I may want to save mine for my grandchildren. If we start changing the system to take away people's coins, people will no longer trust Bitcoin and it will fail.

most people in investing in bitcoin are in it for the future. People buy it, send it to a wallet, save the privkey and never look back(at least for a few years). i even remember of post around here of a guy who bought 2~4 bitcoins using his savings and hided the keys  in a pendrive in his backyard(burried).

So, how would you know which wallet has "lost" bitcoins and which is just holding for the years?

True, Just Better We invested Only, Better to invest than not used. we can invest in ico or a lot of things you could do with the money

I think that 10 years is a pretty good overall time period where the address would have to be confirmed at some point. 50 years would be way too long.

As for how something like this would effect the value of Bitcoin, I have no idea, but as long as the system was reliable and there was no room for error I don't think that there would be an issue with it. Freeing them up to the same reward rate as the current amount would probably be a good thing.

if this could happen?. Bitcoin users are in full control of their transactions including bitcoin funds that they had, and how about people who kept their funds for 10 years or more and hope the price of bitcoin to the moon?

There is no way to differentiate lost coins from coins in a wallet doing nothing, so the best thing to do is nothing, because any measure which could be used as a way to subtract bitcoin from a wallet will open the door to chargebacks and that runs contrary to the ideals of bitcoin.

The issue is that there is no way to know if coins are lost or not. I have coins that I have not touched in years, but they are certainly not lost. If they were confiscated, I would consider that theft.


That is theft, whether it is sanctioned by a government or not.

Right , investing in a reliable and trusted sites is more than enough than stocking it in our wallet. Those big amount of btc will help lots of trusted investment sites to improve more. Though still in stocking it in our wallet it can get bigger without doing nothing . Still helpful, We just need to monitor it not to reach that big so it will not lost.

I think it's the same as in Italy and it's totally reasonable if you ask me, since it's a waste for an apartment to rot unused when it can be recycled and put to a good use by someone else.

That's a better idea, but before taking it under control from the first authority it need to be informed to them. Else it might create issues between the first and second authorities. Also as mentioned these were applicable in very few selected countries.

Only if the owner of the 'dormant account' has publicly admitted that the keys for said account was lost/corrupted, in other words, they no longer have access to the account and all funds in it can no longer be recovered by them.

Though the problem with that is verifying that the "owner" is the real one.

We cant do anything about lost bitcoins. The only thing
we can do for that is check ur history. Where did your
bitcoin was sent. Maybe it was theft or what. But, the
Best thing to do is invest your bitcoin that can gives
double the income.

What about adding some parameter which would basically say that the coins from this wallet shouldn't be moved under any circumstances with default being set to donating them after some period. That might work very much like organ donation, and the way voluntary consent is obtained (opt-in vs opt-out). In this case, both options can be used, i.e. in the case of an opt-out the coins of anyone who has not explicitly refused to donate them will be moved after the expiration of the timeout, or that timeout period could be set by default to infinity effectively meaning that the coins should never be moved. That would be the opt-in option, i.e. only the coins of those who have given explicit consent will be donated...

Also, instead of donating coins, they might be marked as just not yet mined


Shrouds have no pockets

Never. Is the correct answer here. Why do you care about other people's money/possesion/bitcoin? It doesn't matter what they do with their BTC.
It is not that we are losing something when others lose their coins - quite the contrary our coins are worth slightly more.
There is zero problem for bitcoin network too - bitcoin is divisible to eighth decimal places or so - there is no need to recycle lost coins.

is that possible to take control of someone's wallet without its private key? who do you mean can send those forgotten coins?

well, it is big problem that people forget their private keys. but I think, it is not that easy to control all forgotten private keys unless it is controlled by many people or a good system. imo.

I never said there are any technical issues with that


That shouldn't be a big issue, either

And you don't need to grab someone's wallet without its private key. You just mark these transactions as invalid, and these bitcoins can be considered as not mined. That would require some updates to Bitcoin protocol, but I don't think there should be any technical problems to implement this

If you really want to make this happen, since it seems you are interested in this idea,
then it will need to be implemented under the current protocol by using a multi-sig address
and with other parties with keys, who you will trust to only move your coins after it has been
confirmed you are dead and then they will donate them or whatever based upon your wishes.

But currently that is the only way. Otherwise there will need to be direct protocol changes that
allow address contents to be "taken back" after certain requirements are met. Personally I would
not agree with such changes to be placed directly into the protocol because such a thing would allow
possible exploits to take others coins. The issue with this proposition is, you are asking the miners to
be able to not only verify transactions and build blocks, but also the power to take away bitcoins or
in theory move other user's bitcoins. This should never be allowed, is anti-Bitcoin, is against the social
contract, is against the design of the game theory system, and just plain asking for trouble.

So I'm pretty confident this path will never occur. But you could still create a secondary layer on top
of the Bitcoin network or use a thirdparty website to facilitate your idea, without directly changing the
Bitcoin protocol.



True, but if that is your concern, then creating a multi-sig address and setting up your Estate and Will
properly should alleviate any issues that your coins will be "lost". In theory, you could donate them away
through your Will that your estate executor is obligated to perform.


A direct protocol change to add in the ability as you are suggesting is possibility way more controversial
than the blocksize limit debate. I personally believe both sides of that debate would agree not to do this.

This will be prone to all kinds of misuse and abuse. Just like it happens in real life with wills that are successfully (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Hilton#The_Hilton_family_fortune) contested in courts


I tend to disagree

And I think that making changes to protocol which are accepted by the consensus of miners will leave no chance to abuse this system or exploit it in any way. As I see it, the power of miners to take away bitcoins is not potentially different from their power of adding them. I mean its exposure to possible exploits, before all. In effect, claiming that it can be exploited comes down to claiming that all other parts of Bitcoin (like adding new bitcoins to circulation) can be exploited in essentially the same degree. That's why setting it on a protocol level would be the only possibility to make it work as intended


I don't see how it is anti-anything

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin.
You need to understand that the only way to transfer is by the privatekey, you are advocating another way.
A way to get around the privatekey, by using a backdoor. Even if it is programmed and placed into the protocol
through consensus, it would brake Bitcoin fundamentally.

Currently, bitcoins can ONLY move by its associated privatekey signing proof of control.
Your proposal would say that after so much time, forget the privatekey, just move without it.
That is very controversial, IMO.

So you suggest that the lost bitcoins should be declared as public property?

And what should we do with them after they become public property?

Donate them for charity?

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?


Again, this can be argued

If there is a way to create money (and bitcoins are also created basically out of thin air, let's be honest here), there should be a way to destroy it. As I understand it, the process of creating new bitcoins doesn't involve private keys, which are used to access or move the money. In this way, we could as well expect that the reverse process (let's call it unmining bitcoins) should be as straightforward

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument.



You can not "unmine" the bitcoins without destroying the whole chain from when
those btc where placed within a block.
Very simply, when a miner finds a block and takes the coinbase, it is based on rules.
The rule is, you found the block, now only take 12.5 from the coin jar, if you take
more your block is invalidated. The miners follow this rule or else they lose the block
and its coinbase. When a miner takes the 12.5 coinbase, it is transferred to that miners
btc address and included in that block.

If later you wish to "unmine" certain bitcoins within a certain block,
it would cause that block and all blocks that follow to be invalidated since each block is
built based on all prior blocks being valid and their txs being valid. So if you "unmined"
some bitcoins, you are effectively saying prior work was wrong and destroy all those blocks.

The system relies on and is built upon the rule that no bitcoins can be unmined.
If it is allowed, it would destroy everything up to the point of the unmined bitcoin block.

In theory, all 21 million bitcoins currently exist and were placed by Satoshi to be taken over time.
Miners do not create new coins, they are only grabbing from the pile, and at some point, there is
nothing left to grab.

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

No. If you allow a backdoor around privatekey control, that allows the footing for regulators.

Now, for a person to set up a Will that transfers the bitcoins to their heirs, it will need to be the
direct transfer of paper wallets or etc or a multi-sig transaction with the deceased's lawyer and executor.
It would all be outlined in the Will with all parties being told in advanced and provided the keys to do this
later multi-sig tx after death, as instructed.

In the event that Coinbase held the deceased coins, yes, the heirs would likely need to file paper work with
Coinbase to have those transferred just as stock and bonds would be under normal circumstances.

Satoshi intended that users would be their own banks.
If someone held their coins in thirdparty sites, that is not what Satoshi intended.
If someone held paperwallets or etc, that is what Satoshi intended.
If someone held multi-sig with other parties, that is what Satoshi envisioned.

Since Bitcoin is not regulated and is a p2p currency/asset, it is harder to guarantee the transfer to heirs.
It is the responsibility of the btc holder to make preparations about this issue, obviously prior to their death.

I still can't fathom how that could possibly allow any footing for regulating Bitcoin by the authorities. Let's assume that funds can be forcefully moved without the necessity of possessing the keys. After all, that's what my suggestion comes down to. For example, if some variable associated with the address is set to, say, 50, which should be interpreted in terms of years, after that period of time, coins get moved to another address or just considered as unmined and the transaction(s) which added these coins to that address are marked as invalid in the next block. But that would still have to be confirmed by the whole network, right? So where is the backdoor for regulating Bitcoin here?

Or any backdoor at all, for that matter?

What ever you say but what you are saying is killing the theory of Bitcoin security system. If you are telling that  after 50 yrs that wallet address will become null, if anyone like me itself i have stored my bitcoin in a wallet and did not touched my wallet for 50 years then will it means that my wallet address stored bitcoin will also considered as owner is no more and it will be released without getting my consent then it is called theft, How can you tell that bitcoin address which is not operated for more then 50 yrs will be considered as dead wallet address.

What ever you are telling is not appropriate because then their wont be any difference between bitcoin and fiat currency banking system.

Very simply, if your variable is met at 50 years, the coins would need to move without a privatekey telling them so.
Basically, your original tx would have stated that if no movement within 50, then selfmove to coin jar or other.
The issue here is that there can be no "selfmove" without another mechanism like a privatekey.
The only way to do that is by a backdoor.

But if we used invalidation as you have stated prior, to move those coins after 50 years, 50 years of unrelated
blocks would all be invalidated. It is not possible to invalidate a specific amount of btc that has already been
deemed valid for over 50 years. After a bitcoin tx has been deemed valid, it can never be invalidated.
To invalidate it would effectively mean that when the miner found those btc, they made an invalid block.
All blocks built upon that invalid block are all then invalid.

Trust me, I think it is not possible to do the invalidation idea.
And the privatekey backdoor one would never been agreed to.

I don't think it will ever become a major problem.

The chance of losing many coins has already dropped a lot since the coins are much more valuable. If something is valuable, you care more about it and run a small risk. In addition, the days of people losing 10000 bitcoin wallets are also over.

Many people don't move their coins a lot. Marking them as public property is stuipid as it forces you to make silly transactions just to keep your coins active.

It is quite simple as is, you own the private key, you control the addresses associated to them.

But, doesn't that take away the entire point of bitcoin as a safe haven? That means people are forced to move their coins every 10 years or so, and keep track of it. Might not sound like a big deal, but it is annoying and if you forget about it, then it's lost forever.

Also another problem is how are you going to distribute the coins? You said that you could use it to finance scientific research, so how will we reach consensus? How will be pick a legitimate scientific research team to invest in? In my opinion all of this requires centralisation, which is against the very idea why bitcoin is created in the first place.

There is no way anyone could access to lost bitcoin since Mr.Satoshi and the founders created blockchain technology that way.
We don't not how much bitcoin already lost until now and looks like so hard to track down all of it, I think we just let it go, nevermind.

Whatever happened on why they lost it, we would never know. There's no way of determining if it's just unmoved or forgotten. The beauty of bitcoin is it's decentralized; no one could ever control your money, just you. And it will be just yours. Either you lost access to your wallet or just forgot (that would be sad). There's nothing more you can do. It's just time to move on, and let go. Move forward to new bitcoins.

I don't think we have to do anything... Bitcoin have 9 decimals and a lot of units, no matter if some of them are unreachable. It is the price for descentralization.

I don't think there is any need to do this, why we need 21 million bitcoin exactly if there will be less than 21 million its better for price growth of bitcoin. Nobody really care about lost bitcoins other than the one who have lost private keys of those bitcoin addresses.

< 21 million bitcoin = less supply with high demand = price will sky rocket.

Indeed, there is no such mechanism right now, but this doesn't mean that it can't be implemented and without affecting anything done before. Also, I don't see why all previous blocks should be invalidated. You seem to assume that the original transaction that put the money into the wallet (and which also set its lifetime to 50 years) should be invalidated, whereas in fact it will remain valid forever. I talk about a new transaction that would just end its term, if you want me to put it this way. Thereby, there is no point in invalidating any blocks or transactions at all...

And I still can't understand how that could potentially contribute to possible government regulations

I don't know exactly what to do if it happens, but I know that it all is something that doesn't have a bad way to all things. But nonetheless we should use bitcoin for activity is good, indeed the bitcoin has 9 decimal but that will make us get something good thing is when we can benefit. And that's all we can get when holding comes.So, indeed we should always do the promotion of all persons so that the growth of the bitcoin is getting better and more and has a very big advantage. Without growth promotion bitcoin will only end on something a bad thing

Yes, the value of a bitcoin will just go down once its holders sell it cheaper than its current value. Also, bitcoin's value will just go up when its buyer bought it higher than its current value.

Hence, we should not worry about the lose of bitcoin because of mining. It's value won't fall that much.Just hold it, it'll grow up.

A bitcoin lost is a bitcoin gained by all bitcoin owners. It increases the value of the remaining coins. Its value comes from being scarce.

It isn't important to have 21 million Bitcoin. Bitcoin can divided into smaller part and each unit of Bitcoin becomes much more valuable if more coins are getting lost. If you are moving the coins from an address that has no activity for a long time, what is the difference between this and theft? The coins are rightfully the owner's even if they don't want to touch it or has lost it.

It would be impossible for the community to agree on which foundation the coins will go to anyway.

I have already suggested a more robust system. If you don't want your coins forfeited for the common good after you pass away, you might not have to do anything. I suggest adding a variable which would set the lifetime of the transaction or the whole wallet. For example, if the value is set to 50 that would pass as 50 years (0 should obviously mean infinity). After that term expires, a new automatic transaction is generated which doesn't require the private key (since it is generated by the network itself), and all funds from that wallet (or added by that transaction) are either considered as unmined or sent to a Bitcoin piggy bank

After all, isn't Bitcoin all about giving user a choice?


This was just a suggestion. If you don't like this idea you can think of these bitcoins as unmined after they expire

What to do with lost bitcoins? Just simply accept the fact the it was already gone, move on and continue on earning some because thinking over and over again where did it go will just make you confused and you will just get yourself stress just because of that.

If the owner is no longer alive, these coins should be considered as left for dead too, unless his heirs take possession of them, of course. I think there are a lot of people who would be happy to donate their stashes to charities or, for example, medical research should they pass away (I myself would opt for the scientific research without doubt), but they might want to do it right, to do in the Bitcoin way...

That is, by employing the blockchain itself and not corrupt government agencies

Yes it is lost forever and we can't anything just to recover those losses. If you wanted to recover those, then stop thinking of some ways of recovering that.

And don't do the same with those people who totally forgot their bitcoins in their wallet or else you will add to the sum of those lost bitcoin forever.

Thats why we should be very careful on our bitcoin so that it wont be easily lost and we should really keep our private keys and other back up that needs when you accidentally forgot something regarding on your wallet so that you could still able to retrieve it when that thing happen. You are right we should not stressed out ourselves to think on how to get those lost bitcoin back.

if someone lost their bitcoins well, its very sorry to his part. I know there are many people encountered this kind of situations. The question is whether or not those coins are lost for good.

But can lost Bitcoins be recovered? well, it is very impossible to recover the lost coins. In fact it, this kind of situations maybe can be preventive if the users can be more careful and aware of what they do even in sending bitcoins to someone.

Yes I can remember him too.. Yes it is the fact that people are looking it as an investment but I think we should look at it as the medium of exchange instead of investment. Bitcoin's prime feature is the lowst fees as compared to fiat and hence we should treat it like a medium of exchange and not as a commodity to buy and sell (we do that, including me) and we need to improve. Trading is not bad but we should focus on core elements of bitcoin.

We may not be there yet

Bitcoin may not have yet reached that level of adoption that would justify its use a currency on purely economic grounds. Any currency to be used as a means of payment should first get widespread, for example, like gold had been across the world. On the other hand, while Bitcoin adoption is still expanding at a fast rate with its price growing, it may not be quite useful as a full-fledged currency since most vendors and merchants wouldn't want to accept it as payment if it is not widely recognized and its price is constantly changing at that

You are suggesting creating a new tx format that has term limits, that after a term expires,
that the coins selfmove to another address or moves back into the coinbase (which I am not
sure is possible, without invalidation and chain destruction).

Can you please explain in detail the mechanism used to move the coins after the term, without using the privatekey?
Bitcoin does not and will not ever use complex smart contracting, so please explain without using such a system.


I am not going to explain how it could lead to government regulation. It should be self evident.
I shouldn't have to explain how government agencies and regulations function and are able to enforce their will.

There is nothing that could validate the claim you made. It was obvious right from the start, that's why I kept asking you. Nothing would essentially change in the way how transactions get confirmed by the network. There is no backdoor in that either, and can't possibly be since hacking that would require hacking the whole network. Regarding moving the coins after the term expires, you don't need any keys, all you need is confirmation of the respective transaction by the network. Basically, you just need to add an update for making such transactions possible to the Bitcoin code...

Since bitcoins themselves are the transactions written in the blockchain and confirmed by the miners

You never answer or comment on my prior statements.
You only take one point in my answer and change the subject to that.

Please explain in detail how the mechanism will work without using the privatekey.

What you have stated previously and continuously is not based in any reality.
You are only saying it should be easy and no problem.

Please explain in detail why. Please explain why I am mistaken.
Please design the mechanism that will not violate all the protocol and social rules
so that we can evaluate it and determine if it could lead to footings for regulation.

That should be self-evident, shouldn't it?

Nevertheless, when a miner finds a new block, he checks for expired transactions (such transactions might be already sorted and queued to speed things up) and adds a transaction with special attributes that debits the wallet in the amount of the expired transaction and sends the money to some piggy bank. Since this is a special transaction based on the expired transaction, it gets confirmed by other nodes. That's pretty much all there's to it, at least, as far as I understand it. How to properly unmine bitcoins, I don't know. But I don't think either that it should be any harder than that

Let me get this straight:
1. miner finds a block
2. miner adds pending transactions, and also checks past work for "expired txs".
3. if a previously confirmed yet now "expired tx" is found, the miner debits that address.
4. the miner forwards the debited amount to another address or piggy bank, presumably by a miner controlled tx.
5. Since this is an agreed protocol change, all nodes accept this and relay it as valid.

So if the above is correct, what is the mechanism that allows the miner to debit the address without a privatekey?
Currently, the only way to move bitcoins is with the privatekey OR by a hardfork that would make the
blockchain no longer an immutable ledger system.

If another system is added to Bitcoin to allow debiting or whatever, that could be used by governmental regulators.
Currently, governmental regulators can not do anything because no one party holds enough power.
Only the privatekey holder controls the coins, as designed by Satoshi.

Yea i agree also with that because why money should be in one wallet and no touched that will not help to economy money is for using not only for stay in same place and just stay and stay that is really bad.

As I understand it, the miner wouldn't need the key altogether since that would be a special transaction debiting the wallet directly, completely bypassing the keys, and all subsequent transactions from that wallet will be processed taking into account this transaction, if they are to be allowed at all. Since it will be based on the expired transaction (so you can't just take and debit any arbitrary wallet in a similar way), there is no possible backdoor here. And consequently, no possibility for government interference or regulation...

Whatever you might mean by those

Debiting (and crediting in theory) by anyone other than privatekey controller
is strictly forbidden within Bitcoin, even miners have no power to do that now,
and I believe they don't want that power since they will carry more liability.

Not allowing debiting is a fact within the Bitcoin community and is not in any dispute.

The Bitcoin system is founded on the principle and designed that debiting is immoral.
The current bitcoin economy and ecosystem is based on the fundamental truth that debiting is
strictly forbidden.

If you want a system that can debit an address, it must be a secondary layer or a thirdparty
system. It can not and will not be allowed within the protocol. I would suggest you write up
your idea and post it in the development section of this forum and see what they tell you.

*But I think as a work around, you could do a CLTV tx for 50 years into the future that sends the
bitcoins to your donation address. If you do not invalidate that pending tx with RBF and Non-CLTV tx
than before the end of 50 years, it will be placed into a block and confirm to the donation address in
50 years. That would solve your issue without debiting system or miner control to backdoor.

I think that is just impossible to recover those bitcoins that already have been lost. The one thing that programmers can do is to create some perfect protection to bitcoin wallets and exchangers. But as we all know - there is nothing perfect.

You asked how it can be done, I answered

And it is irrelevant whether direct debiting is forbidden or not. Besides, it remains to be seen yet whether such transactions are forbidden at all. If they are in fact forbidden that pretty much means that they are possible even now (despite what you have been claiming to the contrary). In any case, the question is not about debiting random wallets (as I have already pointed out), but only those wallets whose owners specifically scheduled such a transaction, for whatever purpose. I think there is no point in arguing over this issue any more

I asked for a detailed mechanism. You are waving your hand and just saying it could be done.
Of course it could be done. Almost all things can be done in this universe. We could genetically
engineer pigs to fly for the shits and giggles. But that doesn't mean it should be done.
In fact, placing a debiting system is a spit into the face of this novel system and Satoshi.

Very plainly, it is a betrayal of our origin. I am telling you the truth to the best of my ability
and you still disagree which is fine, but you do not disagree based on a fact, but on a belief.

Do yourself a favor and ask people who are more knowledgeable than both of us within the
development section. If you can't accept the answer they provide you, then I don't understand
why you are really here bothering to participate with bitcoin and the Bitcoin network.

I don't think this would be such a great idea, as others have said It would be hard to know if these coins are lost or just stored away.

If they are really lost then so be it, there was a story a couple of years ago of a guy who had forgotten about his coins and threw his desktop in the tip thinking they were worthless, then he saw the price rise and was gutted.

These coins were lost but on paper they could appear as being stored away.
I think we should just ride out the bitcoin ride as it is supposed to be.

Obviously further down the line if there is somehow a legit way of doing this it would have to go through the usual voting process.

I believe so that it is impossible to recover lost bitcoins unless you have backup of your private keys.That is why, prevention is always first to do to have a safe backup. Better safe than sorry.

I don't think this scheme would be fair to people who use Casascius coins or even paper wallets. These physical forms of BTC can be passed around without leaving a mark on the blockchain. It would appear that the coins are "lost" but in reality they could be changing hands (without even incurring a transaction fee!)

In fact, if you are really concerned about lost bitcoins I'd prefer that the protocol be changed to remove the 21M cap and allow a small trickle of bitcoins to be mined indefinitely to make up for lost coins. This would be much more palatable than confiscating coins that haven't moved in a while.

I've lost BTC while already using the private key and after that, I also use 2 Factor Authentication to prevent the loss of BTC until now safe

i'm not going in to the technical part about privkeys and other stuff, lets assume it is possible..
so, even if it is lost, who gets these bitcoins? how to address them without conflicts?

"let's send them to charity"
ok, so, which one? cancer? africa help? some group fighting isis?

every possible winner of these bitcoins would cause conflicts with a part of the community. that would be always a reason to fight, and fight in blockchain world = fork.

While the original idea was a good concept, you're also stating a very valid point.

I saw somewhere either in this thread or another that one idea to get around those issues would be to "reset" coins after a 10-year waiting period where the coins are never activated in one way or the other, and they would go back to being mineable coins for the miners to go after.

Not a bad idea, but this does present a ton of interesting problems.

There's no point we talking about lost bitcoins, I mean if someone lost the private key then it gone for good.
But the remaining coins become more valuable and no need to worry as the value of bitcoin has 8 decimals which equals to every pennies.
as Mr.Satoshi said
Those coins can never be recovered, and the total circulation is less.  Since the effective circulation is reduced, all the remaining coins are worth slightly more.

If you are not quite happy with the expired bitcoins being sent to a piggy bank address, I think they could be just rendered unmined, i.e returned to the pool of yet to be mined bitcoins. In this way, there won't be any conflicts as to who should accept the free lunch. On the other hand, the owner of these coins could explicitly set the address to which they should be sent after the time comes...

That could be construed as a will expressed through the blockchain


It was in the opening post

This is the most accurate answer for this kind of queries which stated on the OP regarding on lost coins. It does really reduced the circulation of bitcoin all in all since not all coins are active. Prices would really rise up since the supply is already been reduced but well we have still more bitcoins to be mined though and it would take years before all the coins will be mined.

For me lost coins are lost coins. I am not bothered by those coins. THough the supply is scarce if we put, it the market will simply adjust to the increasing demand for bitcoin in the form of price inflation.

There are news that maxwell will own bitcoin, well I just hope that he can do something about the lost coins.

I don't like the idea. As Andreas antonopoulos put it, the blockchain (the bitcoin blockchain that is) is a "monument to perpetuity" or something like that. Whatever happens cannot be changed. I would not like the idea of money moving without my consent only because it's not moved for x years.
What if in the future cryotechnology works and Hal is revived after like 500 years and he finds out all of his money is in the hands of random people?

No. It's just like dormant accounts with bank that remain unaccessed for a long and the bank freezes the accounts. That doesn't give the bank the liability to use that frozen money as it will always be the account holders funds that remain in the account even if he has no heir to claim it. The method you are suggesting to get back all those coins is termed as an illegal method and if those people have lost access or their private keys, they should find a method to get them back and if it's lost, it's gone. Who knows in future there may be a way the owners may be able to get access to those accounts? Nothing is impossible.

I don't think it's possible for anyone to remember a private key made by so many characters.... The only thing we can do is wait and hope for the guys who lost their Bitcoin wallets to find them and be able to use the funds again. This is the only thing we can do, which would also affect the price in a positive way.

so if the returning of bitcoins to the original miner are not returned after some longer interval of not using, in the next 100 years and more half of those bitcoins would be lost and the rather smaller amount will be in circulation since people will forget or passs away with their bitcoins storaged with no access to and bitcoin mining will be slowed down due to difficulty.. I honestly think that it should be implemented for bitcoins to be returned.

People who lose their private keys have really been too careless and silly to lose their access and they can't really help even if someone manages to hack into their accounts.

Blockchain's support doesn't even help users to get an access to their accounts as they aren't any trusted bank or have opened their account after verifying their identity. If in case what the OP says happens and those coins get unmined again, it's only the owners who have to be blamed for their carelessness and nobody else.

Andreas Antonopoulos will be happy too

Though I don't know who he is and what he did to Bitcoin to quote his words, but I can say that I support him in full. The Bitcoin blockchain should remain a "monument to perpertuity". In fact, what I suggest is perfectly in line with this paradigm. Transactions which have an expire flag set will remain in the blockchain forever. But that doesn't mean that we can't add the functionality for such transactions

How can that be possible even in the future if people could retrieve the lost coins then all the coins can be hacked just like that. Only coins stored in exchanges and other private sites can be recovered because the site does know its private keys other than that if you are saving in your wallet it much be impossible.When the time comes if people could retrieve those the price of bitcoin will doom. 

???? Lol When i heard losted i would send 1000 messages to that wallet to send my money back that is really stupid that they dont have some way to give back money i really cant understand why that isnt created.

I read many post of you guys.Some people are agree to recover lost bitcoins some people not.I agree to recover lost bitcoins of a certain period if the bitcoin is not used.bitcoin is a currency and you must exchange to fill you daily life leading.you can not find any people who don't spend money from his wallet.if bitcoin used for store once we can see bitcoin on museum.some people said  recover lost bitcoins should be steal some money I want to ask them do you know any property/money lost forever,a certain period someone owner of that property/money,only you will distinguish forever.

The smaller amount of bitcoins is not dangerous

At least, purely on technical grounds. If the amount of coins circulating in the economy diminishes for some reason, it is basically the same as if the amount of goods exchanged for these coins increased. Both of these events lead to coins being more scarce with the prices being rebalanced on a new level. Since Bitcoin can be safely considered as infinitely divisible, new units can get eventually accepted (e.g. half-satoshi)

I guess you did not read the full topic mate, actually thoselost bitcoins if brought back in regulation would make it much better since more the bitcoins in regulation better it is. And the lost amount is not 100-200 bitcoins but enormous amounts are lost everyday. Though I don't see a technical way of doing it.

There is an easy way of doing exactly that, on technical terms

It will just not get accepted, at least, for now. Whether miners' attitude might change in the future is pretty much unknown. But to say that it is totally impossible would be an oversimplification of matters. In any case, I don't see any viable reason against allowing wallet owners to set an expiry period for their wallets or certain transactions. As I have already explained it, that would be a will of sorts done in a decentralized way

Actually if something cannot happen doesn't quite mean that its a bad or worst idea. If you see that bitcoins are lost everyday and every minute and if that continues a time will come when most of the coins would be lost.

But still I think that while its good to recover lost coins but the amount lost is not too significant and if lost coins would be recovered so easily how would they learn ?

What can I do with my lost bitcoins? Nothing, because it disappear quickly so I will start a new one then I wouldn't do the same as my past. I learned from my past so I will be more careful with my new bitcoins. I will do double time to earn more bitcoins then I will use it         in good not for gambling.

You seem to be a crazy socialist with dictatorial ambitions. Your intent is to steal property from individuals to redistribute it for the "common good". The "common good" is a term often used in socialist dictatorships to justify random acts of expropriation and despotism.

There is no rationale besides socialist greed to justify redistribution of unmoved coins. Such acts stand against the whole concept of Bitcoin as a decentralized non-political currency. Doing so would destroy Bitcoin's entire value proposition by making it subject to political influence and I would abandon Bitcoin immediately.

Besides that the rationale behind your whole idea is nonsensical waste to begin with: All unmoved coins automatically contribute to the buying power of all holders, because these Bitcoin are not spent. Therefore there are fewer Bitcoin available in the market, leading to an increase in the buying power of every single moving unit.

ya.ya.yo!

Someone would obviously not be able to do anything with his lost bitcoins, so they have to be careful before losing them that they don't lose them anywhere because once they are lost then they can only try earning more but cannot get the lost ones.

Thats right you need to be careful in using your bitcoins because if you loose your bitcoin it aint go back to you It will disappear on an edge.
if you send it to wrong address and if someone notices that your bitcoin is sent wrong , It can go back into your wallet if you sent it to a good person

If you had read the thread (or just the clarification added to the OP), you would have known that I talk about the wallets (or certain transactions related to such a wallet) whose owners intentionally and willingly chose to close their wallets after a certain amount of time with coins being either moved or rendered unmined. The reason why people might want to do that, I explained in the thread...

But you seem not to care much about details which make your considerations totally inappropriate


I'm curious if you even remotely understand that what you say in the quoted text is the perfect example of the "socialist greed" that you have been attacking just a few sentences above?

Sadly, arguing with you seems to be a waste of time, because you write a lot without providing a single argument that refutes my assessment of your plan.

It doesn't matter at all whether coin holders intentionally destroy their private keys or not. There is no mandate to redistribute coins, that are no longer accessible. If a certain holder wanted to redistribute his wealth, he/she could have done so by initiating a transaction. Not doing so can only be interpreted as not wanting to and therefore rules out distribution of funds for the "common good".

My simple description of the effect of unmoved coins does not contain any psychological intent. It's just a natural law. It invalidates the whole need of a procedure for the purposes that you've outlined.

ya.ya.yo!

How can I provide an argument if you obviously didn't even read the OP up to the end to get an understanding what my point comes down to? I guess I cannot possibly object to something which I didn't even claim. Just in case, the question is not about whether wallet owners want to destroy their private keys altogether. Is this the "assessment" you are talking about? If it is, you'd better read at least the opening post again (and still better the whole thread). I never mentioned anything which could be interpreted as "coin holders intentionally destroying their private keys"...

It would be nice if you chose to reveal where you got this idea from

Any attempt to remine lost coins would be a breakdown of the fundamental purpose of Bitcoin. There is no way to know which addresses have lost coins in them because the owner could simply be saving them. That owner has the right to save them for hundreds of years (passing them down to family). We just have to accept that there are some lost coins that can't be recovered. If you think an address has lost coins in it the only way to get them is to keep trying to guess the private key.

And yes how would we know if a particular address is lost or the owner uses it as a cold storage address, like some people have a habit of storing and holding bitcoins. And if we take their coins, later they claim they had access to it, won't it be too messy and too awkward ?

You (intentionally?) missed to quote my full response. So here is the relevant part again:

It doesn't matter at all whether coin holders intentionally destroy their private keys or not. There is no mandate to redistribute coins, that are no longer accessible. If a certain holder wanted to redistribute his wealth, he/she could have done so by initiating a transaction. Not doing so can only be interpreted as not wanting to and therefore rules out distribution of funds for the "common good".

My simple description of the effect of unmoved coins does not contain any psychological intent. It's just a natural law. It invalidates the whole need of a procedure for the purposes that you've outlined.

I've read the OP very well. And I understand what your point comes down to. But obviously you didn't read nor understood my response.

There is no - and I repeat - no (zero) justification to redistribute coins that are allegedly unused/abandoned/inaccessible for whatever reason. The only possible motive to do something like this is socialist greed, which is at the same time unfounded, because the buying power of each Bitcoin automatically increases anyway by the simple logic I've outlined.

I will not engage in further discussion, because it is fruitless.

ya.ya.yo!

I don't really know what you actually read, but I made a clarification on my opening post (in the OP itself) and even marked it as important. I still think that you somehow missed that part since it does specifically address the issue which you are coming up with (or against) here, i.e. "coins that are allegedly unused/abandoned/inaccessible"...

Here is the clarification, if you don't mind reading it


As you can see, in the case of the opt-in option, coins won't be moved unless explicitly ordered to be moved

dear god. Not this again.


...one might search for one of the dozens of previous discussions on this exact same topic. Or I could save you the trouble by stating the short conclusion reached time after time after time: No.

Yep.

Within 8 minutes of the thread being created, I suggested locking the topic. Then, I reported it to the moderators suggesting that they remove (or at least lock) the topic.

Unfortunately, it seems that this forum is now more interested in nonsense traffic than actually being a useful source of information.

If you don't have anything to say on the topic in a constructive way, I think it is better not to say anything at all

You yourself made two useless posts in this thread that actually generated nothing else but "nonsense traffic", and instead of just walking away (as I suggested, but you have obviously still been sticking around), you chose to pull moderators here wasting their time, which might have been otherwise spent on fighting with real spam (and you could do that too, by the way). If you don't agree with something and consider it as nonsense, think that other people may not share your views altogether. You don't need to reply to this post and start a flame war (you may even delete your both posts here, I don't mind, but I don't care either, just in case)


Show me just one link where there was a discussion of what I suggest here (but read at least the OP first and read it full)

if at any given time i lost my bitcoin all i have to do is to be more care full next time so that i do not repeat that same mistake again because time is money and money is time,in fat i just have to be careful at all time cause getting money or getting one bitcoin is not easy to come by

Yes it will be great to circulate the coins but how can we do that if bitcoin is decentralized and no one controls it but the owner of the particular wallet only .  So let's just avoid losing it instead like what they say prevention is better than the cure  . We should always keep a number of back ups of our private keys, One is for personal use and the other is for others to view in case something happens to you like you should put it in your last will or something

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131101.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=332080.msg3571254#msg3571254

A lot of relevant discussion was also in this 2011 thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20799.0

To OP, as someone who has stored some bitcoins in a cold wallet in a safety deposit box I don't appreciate this suggestion.

I do agree if you send you bitcoin into wrong wallet and then that person generous then he/she could send it back to you but the problem is that if there is still person like that one? As my self im very careful in sending big amount of bitcoins because i know 1 mistakes makes me cry. So be careful on sending

I looked at the thread, and it is not what I suggest here


People seem to read only the thread title

They don't even care to read the opening post anymore, just the opening post, at the very least. While right there I made it perfectly clear that I don't just suggest that all bitcoins sitting idly for a predetermined period of time should be blindly repatriated. This is only one option (likely not a very good one), but it allowed to think about a few other ideas toward which I now tend and which had been later added to the opening post as well, so that people wouldn't be furiously and thoughtlessly attacking me all over again. But they still are, wtf

Well you should stress that this would be optional. I did read that part, but since it wasn't given emphasis and clearly explained how it would work with the existing protocol you can't blame people for ignoring it.

Everyone should do something in accordance with a protocol that has been specified and if it cannot be done properly or not do or implement the Protocol properly then what we do is going to be a bad thing. Everyone indeed will essentially be a good thing if they can control themselves and they can do something extraordinary things. So do something good and never ever wrong in thinking of something a bad thing

I have changed the OP

It kinda seems that a lot of people at first start reading the OP,  then they halfway realize that someone is going to take away their precious bitcoins after a certain period of time, and instead of reading the post to the end, submit an angry reply condemning the thread author as a traitor of Bitcoin or something to that tune

My suggestion is

bitcoin network should have the feature of auto sending the stored bitcoin in primary wallet to backup wallet after the certain time period. This way the person would have a chance to get his funds back even if the primary wallet is lost! Via programable wallet or transaction!

My biggest fear is that when everybody dies Bitcoin will be abandoned leaving the potential for new users having less currency advantages, resulting in lessened market value because of split supply.

I believe one day that there'll be much more done for not only this issue, but for many others.

We may not live up to that, so what difference does it make?

Conventional wisdom has it that Bitcoin is infinitely divisible so it doesn't matter if we have whole bitcoins, mini-bitcoins or just satoshis as a basic unit of account in Bitcoin. Nevertheless, one group of people is claiming that this will necessarily lead to a wealth dilution and less scarcity of Bitcoin as such, though I tend to consider their view as erroneous. Another group is asserting that all lost coins contribute to the buying power of the remaining coins, which is technically correct, but this makes a perfect example of the "socialist greed" that members of this group seem not to be quite aware of themselves


If not Bitcoin, then some other cryptocurrency will do what I suggest here

This is actually a pretty interesting topic, I never really thought about the fact that bitcoins will become scarcer over time due to people losing their wallet keys or storage hardware. I wonder if there will need to be some way to create additional bitcoin to make up for bitcoin that simply gets lost and cannot be retrieved, since the amount of bitcoin is already finite and will continue to get smaller once the last blocks are mined.

If you could recover your lost bitcoins then it would be easier for me  to recover my coins which i lost when my system crashed ,the coins once lost are lost forever and i am not happy with the situation but then you have to accept it ,lesson i learned is to take back ups and have it in multiple safe locations.

Your idea can easily be implemented right now:

1. Create a transaction that moves the coins to the potential recipient's wallet and set nLockTime to a date in the future.
2. Don't publish the transaction. Instead, give it to the potential recipient.
3. If the coins have not moved by the specified date, then the recipient can publish the transaction and receive the coins.
4. If the coins have already been moved, then the transaction is no longer valid.

You could even use this to prevent losing the bitcoins in the first place. If you create such a transaction that sends the bitcoins to yourself, then you must lose the private keys for both addresses in order to lose the bitcoins forever.

Yes, it is a very close approximation to my idea

The only drawback that I can see right now is that if someone holds the keys to his wallet exclusively, say, some lonely but rich geek, who still doesn't want his coins to be lost forever (e.g. if he suddenly dies or gets caught by the FBI and their likes), then he wouldn't be able to donate the entirety of his bitcoins to some fund, charity or community. Leaving a will with a private key may not be what he would actually want to do, for obvious reasons (e.g. anonymity issues)

He donates his bitcoins when he creates the transaction with nLockTime, and that can be done at any time. He can give the transaction to the beneficiary anonymously at any time before his death.

BTW, there is no concept of a wallet in the Bitcoin protocol. A wallet is just a collection of addresses and their private keys, sometimes represented by a single "seed".

Another way to accomplish what you want to do might be to use OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY, which can be used to prevent an output from being spent before a certain time. By sending bitcoins to yourself using a transaction with OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY, you can make it so that you can spend the bitcoins at any time, and somebody else can spend the bitcoins after a certain time with a special key.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1469099.0

Nevermind the title - the thread explicitly deviates almost immediately to 'any that have not moved in X time'.

But this would prevent him from using his bitcoins, right? I mean without invalidating the future transaction. Indeed, you might say that he could send them to a separate address (the coins in which he would never touch) and then give the transaction to whoever he might choose, but it is certainly not the point. On the other hand, since such option exists (and others as well as I can judge), there is very little that should be changed in the Bitcoin protocol that would realize my idea in a straight way. Just in case, I know that there is no concept of a wallet in Bitcoin...

I just use the term since it grates on my ears when I hear someone say that he has money in his address (or something to that tune)


What special key are you talking about?

What you can do if the coins are lost? Just forget about it and move on. May be sometime in the future you will be able to earn far more coins than you lost. Bitcoins must be traded very carefully. Once they are gone, then there is no way to recover them.

yes i also think so, i think if once you lost your bitcoin it  become very difficult to recovery it again, it can only be possible if you recover your wallet key otherwise it is not possible to recover the lost bitcoins.

That is certainly true for bitcoin is not currency that can be restored that we often see in all currencies. Because the system used in the bitcoin system is quite complex and they can not be returned if we made a mistake. So if we use the bitcoin then we should be able to use it with caution, without it then we will continue to get our fault because loss is always done.Bitcoin will only give us an advantage if we know the way the game and we can understand the bitcoin with good

yes that is right to say. i am agree with you, there is no way to recover your lost bitcoin, therefore it is important to trade bitcoin very carefully, and you have already lost your bitcoin then work hard and earn more.

AMEN!