Is the number of available bitcoins decreasing?

[Kingno.1]

No, decrease in no. of bitcoins can not happen.
They will always keep on increasing because people will keep on mining bitcoins and their supply will keep on increasing

[jaysabi]

The number of available bitcoin is not decreasing but the number of bitcoins per day will be decreased after each halving which we hope will impact the price getting higher.

this is about the lost coins not the created amount.
it means losing the wallet or private keys to a bitcoin address with balance because of HDD format, malware,... since nobody can access them ever again they are out of the circulation and are considered lost.
but the amount is nothing compared to the total, so there is nothing to worry about here

So what actually happens when some of the coins are lost in the circulation when the mining of bitcoin has been depleted?
Will there be a program to create the lost coins from all the years past?.

no there is no reason to do so, because those coin that are lost actually help the other gain more value, so it's a bonus on the overall value

I think there actually would be a reason to do so, there just is no means to do so from a technical standpoint unless you can break the cypher protecting the whole Bitcoin system. And if you can do that, you have bigger problems than recovering lost coins.

[jaysabi]

No, decrease in no. of bitcoins can not happen.
They will always keep on increasing because people will keep on mining bitcoins and their supply will keep on increasing

Do you understand this is fundamentally wrong? Bitcoins will not be mined forever. They are capped at 21 million possible coins.

[bitbunnny]

No, decrease in no. of bitcoins can not happen.
They will always keep on increasing because people will keep on mining bitcoins and their supply will keep on increasing

Do you understand this is fundamentally wrong? Bitcoins will not be mined forever. They are capped at 21 million possible coins.

Exactly, the number of Bitcoins is limited. But what will actually happen when we exhaust the mining and rich the limit? Will the price go to the sky or will this be the end of Bitcoin era?

[Arcteryx]

That is not possible. It is set a certain number and that can't change, no matter what.
There are just people who hold or horde a mass amount of coins so it just seems like there are less available but believe me, there are not.
There will be the same amount of coins from the first day they were available for acquisition as will be the last coin is obtained by that one lucky individual 

[coin_gambler]

it actually is decreasing as some people might lose their private keys thus destroy their bitcoins in that wallet

[jaysabi]

No, decrease in no. of bitcoins can not happen.
They will always keep on increasing because people will keep on mining bitcoins and their supply will keep on increasing

Do you understand this is fundamentally wrong? Bitcoins will not be mined forever. They are capped at 21 million possible coins.

Exactly, the number of Bitcoins is limited. But what will actually happen when we exhaust the mining and rich the limit? Will the price go to the sky or will this be the end of Bitcoin era?

What's going to happen to the price, I don't think anyone can say. The last fraction of a Bitcoin won't be mined until around the year 2200 (last estimate I saw). Of course, by then, the cap of 21 million could be lifted or Bitcoin could be worthless.

[jaysabi]

No, decrease in no. of bitcoins can not happen.
They will always keep on increasing because people will keep on mining bitcoins and their supply will keep on increasing

Do you understand this is fundamentally wrong? Bitcoins will not be mined forever. They are capped at 21 million possible coins.

Exactly, the number of Bitcoins is limited. But what will actually happen when we exhaust the mining and rich the limit? Will the price go to the sky or will this be the end of Bitcoin era?

What's going to happen to the price, I don't think anyone can say. The last fraction of a Bitcoin won't be mined until around the year 2200 (last estimate I saw). Of course, by then, the cap of 21 million could be lifted or Bitcoin could be worthless.

But if everything stays the same, the one thing we could count on with the most certainty is that the transaction fees would have to rise dramatically to offset the decrease in block rewards, but this is also true log before we mint the last Bitcoin, as the block rewards will become insignificant long before the last fraction of a coin is mined, and the transaction fees will have to rise to keep the miners mining and the network functioning.

[jaysabi]

That is not possible. It is set a certain number and that can't change, no matter what.
There are just people who hold or horde a mass amount of coins so it just seems like there are less available but believe me, there are not.
There will be the same amount of coins from the first day they were available for acquisition as will be the last coin is obtained by that one lucky individual 

Please note that 21 million is not impossible to change. It is technically possible to scrap the cap, although at this time there is every indication to believe that would urreparably damage Bitcoin, so isn't likely. But that assessment can change over the next 100+ years that bitcoins will be created, assuming the network stays viable the whole time. (With the pace of technological change and innovation, I don't consider that a safe bet by any stretch of the imagination.)

[Arcteryx]

That is not possible. It is set a certain number and that can't change, no matter what.
There are just people who hold or horde a mass amount of coins so it just seems like there are less available but believe me, there are not.
There will be the same amount of coins from the first day they were available for acquisition as will be the last coin is obtained by that one lucky individual  

Please note that 21 million is not impossible to change. It is technically possible to scrap the cap, although at this time there is every indication to believe that would urreparably damage Bitcoin, so isn't likely. But that assessment can change over the next 100+ years that bitcoins will be created, assuming the network stays viable the whole time. (With the pace of technological change and innovation, I don't consider that a safe bet by any stretch of the imagination.)

In the next 100+ years there will another technology to replace bitcoin as innovation always overcomes what we currently call so advanced now.
So, as of now I can not see anyone wanting to scrap the cap, even if they could as that would go against what all believe in now: To keep bitcoin and the blockchain going as long as we can without a slow down in it's progress.

[rio3233]

Don't know what mean bitcoin "lost". Is it disapeared or what?
I think number of available bitcoins is increasing casue bitcoins are non stop generating by miners.

Yes i agree with you, i think the number of available bitcoin is always increasing because we have miners here for finding bitcoin. And if decrease  it because bitcoin that left permanent in a wallet that people forget about it.

[Amph]

it actually is decreasing as some people might lose their private keys thus destroy their bitcoins in that wallet

that's a tiny amount compared to the past, the lost coins nowadays are a tiny fraction, not worth considering

unless someone is doing it on purpose by burning his bitcoin into some un-retrievable address

[bit1]

It is not hard to imagine that every day BTCs are  lost forever because many circumstances. But it is a fact that does not negatively impact because although most "can lost" the remaining can always divide still more to ensure a continuous flow using the 8 decimals or even more in the future .

[aardvark15]

it actually is decreasing as some people might lose their private keys thus destroy their bitcoins in that wallet

that's a tiny amount compared to the past, the lost coins nowadays are a tiny fraction, not worth considering

at least someone is doing it on purpose by burning his bitcoin into some un-retrievable address

I think there are going to be a lot of situations where someone dies and no one knows the private keys to their bitcoins or they don't even know that that he had any bitcoins.  There are also people that will lose the private keys, etc.

[23dzmaz]

it actually is decreasing as some people might lose their private keys thus destroy their bitcoins in that wallet

that's a tiny amount compared to the past, the lost coins nowadays are a tiny fraction, not worth considering

at least someone is doing it on purpose by burning his bitcoin into some un-retrievable address

Well, we don't know if the amount is small or big. But i'm sure one of them must be have many bitcoins lost, it's like a same news about losing his PC that have many bitcoins on it.

[bamboylee]

It only matters to me that bitcoins are being lost because less bitcoin in the market means the higher price it can get, or so i think. Let's face it, it is like gold, it is limited and can be lost that's why gold is so precious and high priced. So is bitcoin, it is limited to only 21M bitcoins and some are being lose. So, someday demands will get high and prices will have to rise too.

[Wendigo]

I think it's too early to say how big of an impact on the Bitcoin price the 'lost' coins will have later on but if we adhere to the principle of high demand and low supply the price should be rising in the future regardless of the external speculation that has been going on. It's only a theory though so don't quote me on that 

[Zuminest]

yes., the number of bitcoins generated per block is set to decrease geometrically, with a 50% reduction every 210,000 blocks, or approximately four years... the year 2016 will see twofold reduction in mining rewards for a block found...

[goinmerry]

it actually is decreasing as some people might lose their private keys thus destroy their bitcoins in that wallet

that's a tiny amount compared to the past, the lost coins nowadays are a tiny fraction, not worth considering

at least someone is doing it on purpose by burning his bitcoin into some un-retrievable address

I think so too. According to some people that I heard mining from the past it is really hard to mine a coin. So I dont think a million or 2 is lost  There are still a lot of coins out there and there are much to be mined.

[KennyR]

it actually is decreasing as some people might lose their private keys thus destroy their bitcoins in that wallet

that's a tiny amount compared to the past, the lost coins nowadays are a tiny fraction, not worth considering

at least someone is doing it on purpose by burning his bitcoin into some un-retrievable address

I think so too. According to some people that I heard mining from the past it is really hard to mine a coin. So I dont think a million or 2 is lost  There are still a lot of coins out there and there are much to be mined.

At times the idle coins ion every users wallet has been calculated as a lost coin. This make the users feel as, the available bitcoins were decreasing continuously.