Tracking "Locked" bitcoin?

[crazy_rabbit]

The OP in this thread makes a very interesting point:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149869.0


Because Bitcoins take some certain amount of time to confirm, during which time, those coins are not available to the economy in any other way it might be reasonable for someone to keep track of how many coins are "Out of circulation" due to being stuck waiting to be confirmed in a block.

Indeed the OP made the point that if someone at the present time were to spend $500 million in Bitcoin it would grind the network to a halt as it would take all bitcoin in existence and lock it up in a block waiting to be confirmed. Theoretically.

I can't think of any situation where this would happen, but it would be interesting to know how much bitcoin is "locked" at any one time? It might be a useful metric. Indeed someone might even find some sort of exploit (not in the bitcoin protocol, but in our economy as a whole) in the future by figuring out how to constrict the money supply at critical moment.

[Richy_T]

That would require them to own that much in bitcoin which in itself would mean the currency was pretty much fubared.

[DannyHamilton]

Can't spend bitcoin that you don't already have, and if you already had it then it was already "locked" until you spent it anyhow since you weren't spending it and nobody else had the ability to spend it.  I don't see the value in this. But you can see a list of unconfirmed transactions here if it entertains you:

http://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

[Mike Hearn]

Coins that are pending are not locked or out of circulation. Most wallets won't let you spend them as a safety measure, but that's simply a policy, not something fundamental to the Bitcoin protocol. For example, bitcoinj based apps let you spend pending change if they were created by your own wallet and were broadcast by a bunch of nodes.

[Killdozer]

Indeed someone might even find some sort of exploit (not in the bitcoin protocol, but in our economy as a whole) in the future by figuring out how to constrict the money supply at critical moment.

So someone would spend their money, and while that is confirming, they will are not able to re-spend their money again, thus locking their coins. Yeah, great exploit.
It's like throwing your gold into the Ocean and saying "haha, it's now locked, you can't use it, economy. Take that!"