Lost bitcoins - a bigger flaw than originally thought?

[beeblebrox]

.......
What would happen if there wasn't a limit on the number of coins created?

My gut feeling is that anyone reading this with more than a handful of bitcoins is going to get very angry as they see their potential pension pot disappear in a cloud of zeros and ones!

Any feedback?

A constant coin creation rate can be expected to eventually reach an equilibrium of sorts with the rate of coin loss and thus a ready steady total amount of active (not-lost) coin.  I'm guessing you've already had an inkling along these lines.  (One can reasonably expect this to be the case as long as the mining rate wasn't ridiculously high causing hyperinflation and completely destroying bitcoin)

As for people getting angry for even mentioning, yep, I'd bet on it.

Lol. If it's so important to compensate for estimated coin loss, why don't you make an alt-chain that implements it your way? Even if your alt-coin struggles at first, people will eventually start to feel the pain from all that unwanted deflation and they will come flocking to your idea.

Are you replying to me or to nwbitcoin.  Cause if you're replying to me and have read this thread a bit then you should have realised that I DON'T consider coin loss a problem.  I was just replying to a genuine question with an intelligent and to the point answer.

[1714874403]

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[beeblebrox]

.......
What would happen if there wasn't a limit on the number of coins created?

My gut feeling is that anyone reading this with more than a handful of bitcoins is going to get very angry as they see their potential pension pot disappear in a cloud of zeros and ones!

Any feedback?

A constant coin creation rate can be expected to eventually reach an equilibrium of sorts with the rate of coin loss and thus a ready steady total amount of active (not-lost) coin.  I'm guessing you've already had an inkling along these lines.  (One can reasonably expect this to be the case as long as the mining rate wasn't ridiculously high causing hyperinflation and completely destroying bitcoin)

As for people getting angry for even mentioning, yep, I'd bet on it.

Lol. If it's so important to compensate for estimated coin loss, why don't you make an alt-chain that implements it your way? Even if your alt-coin struggles at first, people will eventually start to feel the pain from all that unwanted deflation and they will come flocking to your idea.

Oh, by the way, thanks for fullfilling my prediction.  I should take up gambling for a living.

[Gabi]

4 pages, did someone proposed the idiocy "ehi, if a bitcoin is not used for 10 years, we should remove it and put it back to be mined"?

[Piper67]

4 pages, did someone proposed the idiocy "ehi, if a bitcoin is not used for 10 years, we should remove it and put it back to be mined"?

Of course they did... maybe we should start a new subforum, only for people who've been around since 2011 or so, and pay someone to edit out the chaff.

[SimonL]

OP, please do a better job of looking in the forums for these asinine discussions.

On the up side I have one more to add to the list.

See you guys in two more months

for future reference here are all the threads I've found to date that near constantly try to resurrect a non-problem. If you feel so passionate about it, please move it to the alt-currency section. It has no place here on Bitcoin Discussion. It already been "discussed".

• Is this idea to counter lost bitcoins possible? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131101.0
• Can bitcoin die at some date because of stranded bitcoins? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112525
• A proposed solution to adjust for lost Bitcoins: wallet 'heartbeats' https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20799.0
• Recycle lost coins https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44511.0
• Deflation and Bitcoin, the last word on this forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11627.0
• Coins checking and snapshotting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=473.0
• Restoring Lost Bitcoins https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48851.0
• Deflation, Doomsday and the return of Lost Coins https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79576.msg882591#msg882591
• Make Bitcoins "dissolve" after some time if not used? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8640.msg125407#msg125407
• PROPOSAL: Move all "lost bitcoins" threads to "Alternate cryptocurrencies" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131121.msg1404275#msg1404275

[Roger_Murdock]

OP, please do a better job of looking in the forums for these asinine discussions.

On the up side I have one more to add to the list.

See you guys in two more months

for future reference here are all the threads I've found to date that near constantly try to resurrect a non-problem. If you feel so passionate about it, please move it to the alt-currency section. It has no place here on Bitcoin Discussion. It already been "discussed".

• Is this idea to counter lost bitcoins possible? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131101.0
• Can bitcoin die at some date because of stranded bitcoins? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112525
• A proposed solution to adjust for lost Bitcoins: wallet 'heartbeats' https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20799.0
• Recycle lost coins https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44511.0
• Deflation and Bitcoin, the last word on this forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11627.0
• Coins checking and snapshotting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=473.0
• Restoring Lost Bitcoins https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=48851.0
• Deflation, Doomsday and the return of Lost Coins https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79576.msg882591#msg882591
• Make Bitcoins "dissolve" after some time if not used? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8640.msg125407#msg125407
• PROPOSAL: Move all "lost bitcoins" threads to "Alternate cryptocurrencies" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131121.msg1404275#msg1404275

Yeah, but what if too many of the old threads get lost? (For that matter, are you sure you found them all?) That's why it's imperative that we create new "lost coins" threads every month in perpetuity. Ideally, it should be hardcoded into the forum software so that they're generated automatically.

[nwbitcoin]

4 pages, did someone proposed the idiocy "ehi, if a bitcoin is not used for 10 years, we should remove it and put it back to be mined"?

Of course they did... maybe we should start a new subforum, only for people who've been around since 2011 or so, and pay someone to edit out the chaff.

Using that logic, it might make more sense to expire the membership of anyone who has been on the forum before 2011 to prevent them feeling that they have entered groundhog day! 

[Roger_Murdock]

...
Yeah, but what if too many of the old threads get lost? (For that matter, are you sure you found them all?) That's why it's imperative that we create new "lost coins" threads every month in perpetuity. Ideally, it should be hardcoded into the forum software so that they're generated automatically.

But this wouldn't solve the cost overhead of keeping the old threads in memory. I propose a completely different solution: the forum software should automatically dig up and resurrect zombie "lost coin" threads to keep them fresh.

You think memory is going to be the problem?! At the rate hardware is improving? Frankly, your proposal is absurd and tyrannical. How do you know that those "zombie" threads you are proposing to dig up are lost? Maybe they were abandoned for a reason. People should be free to make that choice. I suggest you go make an alt forum, because you don't have a frickin' clue what bitcointalk is all about. Oh, and guess who just got added to my ignore list?