Losing your bitcoin wallet would be like burning cash I think. Obviously, that money is lost from the financial system and the same goes for bitcoin (the coins are not lost but cannot be accessed by anybody).

So it got me thinking - Banks fairly regularly change the style of notes with a period of transition to give people the chance to change old notes for new legal tender notes. I can see no real reason why, in theory, this kind of process could not be applied to a cryptocoin. It could go something like this, every 2 years there is a 2 month period to transfer the coins from their old wallet to a new wallet thus acknowledging that the owner is able to 'spend' them should they wish. At the end of the process any coins not transferred are assumed lost and become available for mining again.

Probably be a nightmare to implement and keep track of the transitions and no use to the people who 'burnt' their bitcoins but it protects the amount of currency in the system.

Does anyone think this could be a good idea or know if somebody else has this kind of process implemented in a cryptocoin already?

I'm a 2nd computer science student who's been looking at crytocurrencies for only a week or 2. Next year I have to do a project and am looking for something interesting and different to do.