Bitcoin Forum

You can only know for sure that someone is in possession of a private key when coins are spent, but large amounts of unspent coins could create uncertainty to trust the system because they have influence on the trade markets when they are spent.

So I was wondering, when do people agree to be 'sure' that coins are lost forever and not stored in a savings account?
My first guess would be the average life expectancy, roughly 77 years.

edit: added option 'never'

lacked the "never" option. I do not think Bitcoin a day will become lost forever

I would have answered your poll, but as mlferro pointed out, you are missing an option for "never".

According to recent "news (http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/d-mark-deutsche-horten-noch-12-9-milliarden-in-der-alten-waehrung-a-1010277.html)", Germans still hoard 12.9 Billion Deutsche Mark (DM), or roughly 6.6 Billion EUR. That's about 7.8 Billion USD some 13 years after the switch to the Euro.
When should these be considered "lost forever"?
The German Bundesbank (something like the FED) says "never" and swears to honor the obligation to exchange any DM into EUR for all eternity ;)

An early adopter who was probably 15 years old would have been 92 after adding 77. Given the average life expectancy of 80 and another 12 years assuming he/she did pass the private key to another person and still the coins remain idle, most likely the private key was never there in the first place.

That is somewhat strange as I assume that they can only be exchanged at all through the Bundesbank and the official rate of exchange is locked for eternity also.

I wonder if it is actually Germans holding them though? I could imagine that there's wads of 50,000 hidden in various world wide safety deposits, along with pounds, dollars, francs, as a hedge or SHF fund.

Exchange rate is locked at 1.95583, right.
Many the DM are probably lost, the lion's share probably outside of Germany.
But there's also almost no (older) German who does not still keep a Pfennig or Mark coin somewhere ;)

i vote for another option - never , because bitcoin is becoming best concurrency now and future , so i don't think it will lose forever :)

I think that never.

The only way is to have lost the private key.

If someone claim to have lost a private key you may consider them lost

Yes - never.

1 BTC = 999 999 999 units.

so 27 Millions of BTC = 27 000 000 000 000 000 units.

I think we can safely consider bitcoins as lost when they're sent to an address such as 1BitcoinEater. Unless the cryptographic protocols underlying address generation are broken, it can be reasonably assumed that noone will ever generate the private key to such a burn-address.

edit:
This is not only irrelevant to the discussion, it is also wrong.

Average is 77 years for a life but we are only adults or in control of ourselves for just over half that period.  If bitcoin hasnt moved out of address for 40 - 50 years its not looking good that anyone can move it.  Obviously there will be exceptions.

I chose 500 years as never, because I think by then we will have colony in different planets and we will probably shift from the current state of the internet. So, everything that is stuck to this internet might be considered as lost by then. :)

Since “infinite years” is technically within the range of “>500 years”, I'm voting for that option.

Even if we inhabit all Solar System planets (something beyond that is quite unrealistic), why do you think the Earth's Internet will suddenly stop existing? Also, Bitcoin does not require Internet at all. Theoretically you could implement the Bitcoin protocol using telegraphs (provided enough consensus, of course).

Could do one time since the most were lost in the beginning, who knows how many.  Would affect the price.

A bitcoin is never lost, Frodo Baggins, a bitcoin exists exactly where it means to




Quantum entanglement data communication has been demonstrated in the lab and is currently undergoing testing at significant distances.... this should mean, that by the time we are ready to go to other stars, we can have a hugely powerful laser pointed at the destination, that while it will take the speed of light time to first establish the link, will then offer instantaneous communication, so first humans to alpha centauri could possibly have a less laggy internet connection than everyone does now. Provided they remember to fire the laser about 5 years before they get there.... (Not absolutely sure on this, but it may be required to drop off a mirror exactly halfway, easier than freezing the photons for 5 years I assume.)

Feel free to consider coins unspent for 30 years as lost.

However don't even think about trying to confiscate them.

I'm not a physicist, but many answers in the Physics Stack Exchange seem to agree that communication via quantum entanglement is not possible. For example: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/15282/quantum-entanglement-faster-than-speed-of-light

That was 2011, do you read 19th century textbooks about aerodynamics?  ;)

http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-communications-leap-out-of-the-lab-1.15093

Your linked article only talks about using quantum physics to send private keys securely. It mentions nothing about sending them faster than light.

Here's a link to a more recent question (2015) which still states it's impossible: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/157018/why-does-the-speed-of-light-totally-prevent-instantaneous-information-exchange/157022#157022

It basically says that having faster-than-light communication enables causality violation, such as the Tachyonic antitelephone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone).

Also, in what kind of system is 2011 in the 19th century?

That was perhaps the wrong example, being as they were focussed on the "telltale" nature of quantum keys.

However, quantum teleportation research has been heating up the last few years, and practical demonstrations of it's abilities will probably be more widespread in the near future.

"What we knew" about heavier than air flight was turned on it's head in 3 short years from the end of the 19th century. I meant to draw a similar parallel.

I'm sure the well meaning amateurs on stackexchange will catch up with this eventually.

You say that as if you knew something that they don't. In such a case, you should contribute to them.

I still don't understand how the causality violation is resolved, or maybe we can break causality without any consequences? (I find irony in that question)