lost btc

[mechew]

With only 21 million coins to exist and the high likelihood people will lose them (lots have been lost already), how does this not kill the idea of btc?

Dont get me wrong, I love it, but theres some common sense questions I can't talk myself out of.

Another one is what's the goal of this to replace?  USD/EUR/GOLD/etc?

If cash its flawed in the sense that there's only 21m.  am I to believe 1 btc will be worth 1m?  btc would have to reach 1m in order for the smallest fraction of a btc allowed to be worth 1 cent.  With btc at 1m that makes anyone with 100k btc the richest person in the world and makes Satoshi Nakamoto and multi-trillionaire.

[seriouscoin]

With only 21 million coins to exist and the high likelihood people will lose them (lots have been lost already), how does this not kill the idea of btc?

Dont get me wrong, I love it, but theres some common sense questions I can't talk myself out of.

Another one is what's the goal of this to replace?  USD/EUR/GOLD/etc?

If cash its flawed in the sense that there's only 21m.  am I to believe 1 btc will be worth 1m?  btc would have to reach 1m in order for the smallest fraction of a btc allowed to be worth 1 cent.  With btc at 1m that makes anyone with 100k btc the richest person in the world and makes Satoshi Nakamoto and multi-trillionaire.

stop making threads until you actually read about bitcoins.

And no 10min isnt enough.

chao

[Nathonas]

The only way to "lose" BTC is to forget your codes. Which isn't a huge issue to begin with (most of the lost BTC stories are people who mined them ages ago and totally forgot about them) and I would argue is becoming less of an issue with time as people learn to be more careful.

The goal is to replace fiat period, because fiat can be controlled/used by governments and other groups of people who manipulate it to their ends and fuck over the average citizen.

How is it flawed? If the price goes up, then we will just use fractions of a bitcoin. The finite 21 million doesn't matter because it can be broken down infinitely.

[Light]

You need to read more before you start thinking you've discovered some hole in the system that no-one has ever comtemplated. Your extremely unlikely to be the first guy to question this (you actually definite not). If people lose coins, there is simply an inflationary pressure on the value for everyone elses. There's no point in worrying about BTC reaching 1mill per BTC till we actually see rises beyond the 1K price point. It is extremely probable that we don't reach anywhere close to 1mill per BTC in the next hundred years or so, falling short of a massive devaluation of the USD.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

With only 21 million coins to exist and the high likelihood people will lose them (lots have been lost already), how does this not kill the idea of btc?

Dont get me wrong, I love it, but theres some common sense questions I can't talk myself out of.

Another one is what's the goal of this to replace?  USD/EUR/GOLD/etc?

If cash its flawed in the sense that there's only 21m.  am I to believe 1 btc will be worth 1m?  btc would have to reach 1m in order for the smallest fraction of a btc allowed to be worth 1 cent.  With btc at 1m that makes anyone with 100k btc the richest person in the world and makes Satoshi Nakamoto and multi-trillionaire.

One bitcoin(1BTC) can be subdivided into smaller fractions, like 0.5btc(or say 0.54395834) or 0.00000001. As of now only 8 decimals after the point are allowed, but in the future it can be made to be infinitely divisible.

And yes, Satoshi would indeed be the richest person on Earth, hell with all the money he has he can dominate the Earth(or his descendants) if the worth of coins increases.

[irrational]

While ignorant, I don't see any harm in the question.

OP, think of Bitcoin like gold in this case. Gold, being a precious metal, is generally though of as a finite resource. So, this this regard all the lost gold at the bottom of oceans hasn't made gold any less valuable/desirable.

Moral of the story; backup your wallet 

[mechew]

I like how personal some people took the question, and I've read a lot more than 10 minutes worth of research.

No one has answered my questions.  One attempted but got sidetracked.

You can lose your wallet.  When you're entire financial life is in a digital file with a sentence long password, backup's don't protect you from corruption.  I've dealt with hundreds of TB of backups and doesn't matter if you backup 10 times, if you're backing up a corrupt file its not recoverable.  Also doesn't help if you forget the password (through your fault or not), even death.  There's tons of everyday occurrences to lose access to your wallet and with no single point of regulation there's no way to recover.

[btc_jumpnrl]

Lost coins would really only become a problem if amount of coins get really high, like over 50% of them are lost (though by that that number someone would need to put some serious thought as to why all these are being lost), then even then its not a huge issue . Why? Because lost coins only cause the value of all the other coins to go up. This combined with the fact that a single Bitcoin is divisible by 8 decimal places (currently though this could possibly be expanded), and you're 21 million coins become 2.1 quadrillion satoshis (the unit name of choice for 1e-8 bitcoins). If you lost half of the coins you'd still have 1.1 quadrillion satoshis. That's still a lot of monetary units to divy up and use.

If you're just starting to delve into bitcoin, Don't be afraid of the search button. It can be your friend. Lots of topic here have been repeated and beaten into a pulp over the years.

EDIT- If you lose your password then you are SOL. If you are terrified of your backups becoming corrupt, then move all your savings to a single address and print out a paper wallet address and store in a fire-safe lock box. If you need a daily wallet, write down your password and only keep a small balance in it. Every so often (depends on how many transactions and addresses you've generated really) back up a copy to a flash drive, one to a CD/DVD and third zipped up and dropped on dropbox/cloud host of choice. If that still doesn't satisfy you. Then a digital currency just might not be for you.

If it seems like people are being mean, its because they are tired of hearing and answering the same questions over and over. So I kindly refer you to the search button once again. Please use it.

[KenJackson]

There's tons of everyday occurrences to lose access to your wallet and with no single point of regulation there's no way to recover.

I think you're right, but a single point of regulation is the very gateway for evil which bitcoin was designed to avoid.

Think of the other side.  Isn't it remarkable that a system has been developed, implemented and accepted that makes it possible to avoid a single point of regulation?  I'm still somewhat shocked that its been pulled off. The risk of losing coins is the price for this freedom, but it's manageable risk.

[Abdussamad]

There's tons of everyday occurrences to lose access to your wallet and with no single point of regulation there's no way to recover.

a) The same could be said of cash. Somehow people cope with that.

b) You can do all sorts of multsig implementations. 2 of 3, 6 of 10 or whatever. Within your wallet as well as with backups so there is no single point of failure.

[Veladero]

Mechew, your questions show that you do not yet 'get' Bitcoin, hence the comments asking to you search & read... there is no shortage of information & answers out there..  Here are a few quick comments..

With only 21 million coins to exist and the high likelihood people will lose them (lots have been lost already), how does this not kill the idea of btc?

This doesn't make sense to me.  Why would losing a $20 bill in the parking lot, impact the USD?  Why would burying 20 gold coins in my backyard, change the value of gold?  As stated above, if you take a large chuck of currency out of circulation, you put some upward inflation pressure on that currency.  No different than anything else in the world.

Another one is what's the goal of this to replace?  USD/EUR/GOLD/etc?

Wouldn't it be nice to buy something in a country next door, without having to pay the bankers a 'foreign transaction fee' and deal with their ridiculously poor 'exchange rates'?  Or to buy something for yourself, without having the bank, the government or anyone else know about it?  Or to escape the local government who says you cannot transport any gold or currency out of the country?  When a bankrupt government goes deep in debt, they are drowning in it, they will confiscate your gold, your savings & control where/when/how you can spend what you have left.  Good luck with that.

If cash its flawed in the sense that there's only 21m.  am I to believe 1 btc will be worth 1m?  btc would have to reach 1m in order for the smallest fraction of a btc allowed to be worth 1 cent.  With btc at 1m that makes anyone with 100k btc the richest person in the world and makes Satoshi Nakamoto and multi-trillionaire.

Not if somebody else has 101k BtC...     If you look at your question from an international non-USD point-of-view, you will see it does not make sense.  Currencies raise & fall in relation to other currencies.  Assets have value.  Currencies are just an intermediary to transact between assets.  Bitcoin is just a currency.  Use it where it make sense.  Use others where it makes sense.  However, no one bank controls Bitcoin.. that is its beauty.  It cannot be diluted due to political greed.  It is a market based currency, and it will raise & fall on its own merits, desires & dangers.  Awesome!
+V

[casinocoin]

With only 21 million coins to exist and the high likelihood people will lose them (lots have been lost already), how does this not kill the idea of btc?

Dont get me wrong, I love it, but theres some common sense questions I can't talk myself out of.

Another one is what's the goal of this to replace?  USD/EUR/GOLD/etc?

If cash its flawed in the sense that there's only 21m.  am I to believe 1 btc will be worth 1m?  btc would have to reach 1m in order for the smallest fraction of a btc allowed to be worth 1 cent.  With btc at 1m that makes anyone with 100k btc the richest person in the world and makes Satoshi Nakamoto and multi-trillionaire.

Personally I don't think it is here to replace any major currency, but instead act as a mediator between many.
No more transferring money when you go somewhere and worrying about the amount you have in your pocket.

[deepceleron]

The reason this is annoying is that besides being re-asked here multiple times, the question is in the FAQ.

There is no concept of "lost coins" per se, there are only coins not spent recently. You can't tell ultimately if someone is saving for their retirement or cannot spend the money.

In a macroeconomic scale, if money is removed from the economy, then that means the remaining currency must hold the value needed. For now, with Bitcoin, about $2M worth of Bitcoin is being printed every day, and I doubt it's being lost at that rate.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Lost_coins_can.27t_be_replaced_and_this_is_bad

[slaveforanunnak1]

Here is my fear.
It's year 2030. IPv6 is fully implemented and every citizen gets a V6 address along with their SSN. They also get a key pair to use for any and all transactions. If you don't, you're deemed a terrorist/IPjacker/KEYCRACKER and you will be prosecuted.  Thanks to LISP ( Locator Identifier Separation Protocol ) every machine you "login" to give yous the same V6 address and every transaction you make will forever be embedded into the blockchain.
Totalitarian Jizz Fest.

I hope I'm wrong! , but all it takes is a few bad presidents and we could lose all of our freedoms. ( did i mention, no cash! It was taken out of circulation in 2026)

Going back to mining... lulz.

Oh, also, If we can divide a bitcoin infinitely, then how are we going to stop inflation? Lets say in 2030 IMF has taken over the "bitcoin foundation" role and now they can divide a single Satoshi into a untold amount of Dorians???( OVER 9000!!!)  Hello inflation. Hello profits!
Right now, It's fucking great! Generate key pairs all day, mix them, do whatever. But remember we're free to do that because we are allowed to to be free. And if you think for a second thats crazy, just remember. IT'S ILLEGAL TO GROW A TYPE OF PLANT!!!!!!!!! THEY WILL PUT YOU IN A FUCKING CAGE IF YOU HAVE THIS PLANT!!!!!  lol   IMF/FBI/IRS will make you update your client so please don't say "we don't have to do anything we don't wanna"   They will divide the Satoshi and they will make you update your wallet.

I really feel bad for our children or their children.