Losing a wallet and total bitcoins

[Marko]

The total amount of bitcoins will be 21 million. Lets say i hold in my wallet 5 million bitcoins. I proceed to lose my wallet. I understand that i lose my bitcoins and am now broke. However, does that mean that the total circulation of bitcoins is now 16million?

If so then, technically, the system 'leaks' bitcoins.
Maybe i'm misunderstanding how this all works. Can someone shed some light?

[nelisky]

You got everything correct, but left out the part where everyone else is a little richer after that (except for you). Bitcoins are very divisible and thus the 21M is just the number of coins, but put 8 decimal places on top of that and the "unit of currency" is a lot larger.

[ribuck]

And even if it got to the point where the tiniest division, down to the 8th decimal place, was too big, it would be possible to develop a smaller unit that was cryptographically linked to the remaining bitcoins, no matter how few there were.

So the loss of bitcoins is absolutely not an issue (except to the person who loses them, of course).

[andy_3_913]

really think the bitcoin setup program should address this problem.
either ask the user for a backup location and backup after every personal transaction or some other solution.

at the minute it's left to the user.
which is not really fair if your system goes down.
fatally!!

edit:
come to think of it, it's totally unfair.
this needs to be more secure if you can lose your entire bc account due to just carelessness or bad luck!!
wouldn't get many bankers using a system like that!

[ribuck]

come to think of it, it's totally unfair.

Bitcoin is neither fair nor unfair, it just is how it is. Each person decides, based on how Bitcoin is, whether it's worthwhile for them to use it.

Having said that, better backup options in the standard client would be great, and I'm sure they'll come in time. It's an open source project, so you're free to be part of the solution.

[andy_3_913]

come to think of it, it's totally unfair.

Bitcoin is neither fair nor unfair, it just is how it is. Each person decides, based on how Bitcoin is, whether it's worthwhile for them to use it.

Having said that, better backup options in the standard client would be great, and I'm sure they'll come in time. It's an open source project, so you're free to be part of the solution.

i wish i had the brains

[Drifter]

An easy way for the average Joe is to get to simply get some backup software, like SyncBack. Set up the directories in which you'd like to copy files and save them, and set the schedule on how often you'd like it to run. The schedule can be ran anywhere from seconds, to days. You also can also password protect the backup automatically within the Syncback advanced settings.

I have a backup running every 15 minutes of my wallet.dat, and that is saved to my Dropbox after being compressed and password protected. If the amount in my wallet hasn't changed, the backup doesn't do a thing. Dropbox keeps a record of all changes of your files within the last 30 days (FOREVER for payed users). If anything goes wrong within the month, I have a record of nearly every change that's happened this month.
I could even run this backup every few seconds to check for changes if I wanted to, but no need for overkill.


Shameless plug here, but if you don't already have dropbox and what an extra 250mb storage, follow the referral: http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEwNzcxMDc5OQ
Fair warning, I think I'm able to see the e-mail addresses that sign up with my referral, so if that's a problem, don't use the referral.

[andy_3_913]

yes, but that means THEY have to do it!!
Would the average Joe think about it??
I don't think so.

[Drifter]

Not saying it's an absolute answer, just one of the easier backup solutions.

[lfm]

Not saying it's an absolute answer, just one of the easier backup solutions.

Well if the average Joe wants me to back up their wallet for them, I'll do it. Keep it nice and safe right here in my pocket. I promise! :-)

[LZ]

Yeah. Dropbox + keypool = safe backup.