A proposed solution for lost Bitcoins...

[malikusama]

"Lost" bitcoins are not a problem so there is no need for a solution. However, the idea of dropping old blocks does have some merit. It would limit the sizes of the UTXO set and the blockchain, and that would reduce the cost of running a node. On the other hand, it's not clear how that could be done.

As for the OP's question: i agree with odolvlobo, it doesn't matter if people don't give their keys to their heirs... At the moment, the smallest unit is one satoshi (0.00000001 BTC), nothing is stopping the community from implementing even smaller units (for example, one  millisatoshi). The more people lose access to their funds (for example by forgetting or dying), the less BTC will be available, the higher the price will be...
It's perfectly possible to run a complete community whith only 1 BTC in circulation... Ofcourse you'll probably be paying in micro-satoshi instead of mBTC.

Although it is an old topic and have been discussed many times but I didn't came across this thread before.
Many of the people still don't understand what mocacinno described above in simple words.
It doesn't matter if someone lost BTC forever, because even if we left with few bitcoins, those bitcoin can be traded in more smaller units like satoshi.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

OP I have a question for you when you lose your fiat currency be it $, ¥, €, £ etc what happens to the money lost? You have to start seeing bitcoin as a currency more than an investment only then will you understand it isn't the responsibility of bitcoin developers to find a solution to lost bitcoin instead the service providers using the currency should be held responsible.

A possible solution will be, the service providers be it wallet or exchange should provide a form for her users when signing up for Next of kin, in cases when the owner of account dies the next of kin can request for a transfer of ownership but the disadvantage here is, this solution will only work for centralized service providers and a lot of KYC will be involved. MultiSign can alao be used.

[BuySomeBitcoins]

Hi,

I start to try to find here solutions for bitcoin losts and i cant believe something so powerfull as bitcoin dont have solution yet for the case that some person die and that bitcoins get lost in time forever, im sure that happens yet, someone died and dont pass the Private Keys to anybody!

That puts one endpoint in the project its just a matter of time, i find some topic like this:

"A proposed solution to adjust for lost Bitcoins: wallet 'heartbeats'" that is innactive at years.

This is my propose:

I propose that after some time (X years) if that bitcoin address have no moves, the system will collect the money for bitcoin miners rewards.
Of course the X should be a big time, not only 7 years as i read in the other post, one guy can stay in a coma by 7 years and wake up again, look Michael Schumacher, dont die yet, he is fighting. Someone can have amnesia for 7 years, etc.

So i purpose for example 100 years, its a big and round number, after that time the address needs to be cleanned and bitcoins enter again in circulation, how can a project like this dont have solution yet for that ?

With this solution we can create another solution for blockchain size shrink, because Satoshi Nakamoto in whitepaper purpose a solution for blockchain size, "deleting the old blocks", so, everytime the 1st block of the blockchain have only address with 0 BTC, that first block will be deleted, than we test the 2nd block, and 3rd and keep deleting blocks until we have a block with one address with money and moved in less then 100 years, that would be the new genesis block.

For me this is like the foundations of a new house and it seems the project started from the roof, many can tell that in 100 years many things will change, but i remember Y2K !

What if some decides to passe the wallet private keys in paper or cold format to their grandchildren and does not want them to spend the coins and keep it as family inheritance for generations to come ?

[cfbtcman]

"Lost" bitcoins are not a problem so there is no need for a solution. However, the idea of dropping old blocks does have some merit. It would limit the sizes of the UTXO set and the blockchain, and that would reduce the cost of running a node. On the other hand, it's not clear how that could be done.

As for the OP's question: i agree with odolvlobo, it doesn't matter if people don't give their keys to their heirs... At the moment, the smallest unit is one satoshi (0.00000001 BTC), nothing is stopping the community from implementing even smaller units (for example, one  millisatoshi). The more people lose access to their funds (for example by forgetting or dying), the less BTC will be available, the higher the price will be...
It's perfectly possible to run a complete community whith only 1 BTC in circulation... Ofcourse you'll probably be paying in micro-satoshi instead of mBTC.

Although it is an old topic and have been discussed many times but I didn't came across this thread before.
Many of the people still don't understand what mocacinno described above in simple words.
It doesn't matter if someone lost BTC forever, because even if we left with few bitcoins, those bitcoin can be traded in more smaller units like satoshi.

Yes lost bitcoins are a problem, if bitcoin works for thousands of years and if someone in future recovers one lost "wale" address, that could collapse the market and bitcon needs stability without pump and dumps, look the acceptance of the shitty stable coins right now, stable coins are just a representation of FIAT coins.

[cfbtcman]

OP I have a question for you when you lose your fiat currency be it $, ¥, €, £ etc what happens to the money lost? You have to start seeing bitcoin as a currency more than an investment only then will you understand it isn't the responsibility of bitcoin developers to find a solution to lost bitcoin instead the service providers using the currency should be held responsible.

A possible solution will be, the service providers be it wallet or exchange should provide a form for her users when signing up for Next of kin, in cases when the owner of account dies the next of kin can request for a transfer of ownership but the disadvantage here is, this solution will only work for centralized service providers and a lot of KYC will be involved. MultiSign can alao be used.

The FIAT money loss is being restored every day when central banks print more money!
Without that the world would be in a war because the lack of money, thats why deflacionary coins like gold failed before and bitcoin would failed too if it was the only coin in the world.

The problem would be even bigger with this situation that we have always less and less bitcoins because the developers dont want to solve the problem, if we start to clean blocks older than 10 years for example and give that money to the miners the problem would be solved.