[2016-10-24] The Amount of Bitcoin Is Scarcer Than We Think

[BellaBitBit]

1 million to Satoshi, and another 1 million combined for all other stuff. We are looking at 2 million BTC that are never moving. So we will have less than 19 million bitcoins in circulation, probably only half of that is in "public" circulation in the exchanges, the rest are in cold storage or something.

there are many "lost" coins
whenever anyone loses his private key his bitcoins are effectively lost,taken out of circulation and most likely never accessible again
I think it could amount to up to 10-20% of the total number
add the coins that rarely or never move and it could be some massive figure
nothing to worry about,though as the market would react supply/demand style pricewise and there is no risk to run out of coins because of denomination
21mil*100mil=ALOT

To add to the coins which are lost, there are coins which are 'burnt' or thrown into digital wishing wells.
The only effect that losing coins has, is to increase the value of other coins in circulation.

This is good for all holders, burnt coins and lost coins only make our bitcoin more valuable. It would be interesting but I am sure impossible to know the amount of coins in existence.

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[U2]

This is the stupidest article wtf? Ok so out of what 15million bitcoins let's say 1 or 2million are missing. That's still 1,300,000,000,000,000 Satoshis. If each of those is worth a tenth of a cent ($1,300,000,000,000 market cap = $100,000 per btc) We can always break a bitcoin down to 16 decimals. But anyways at that point we'll be too busy on our yachts to worry about this petty crap.

[tunctioncloud]

Not a big deal to be seen here. Price will simply increase and then 0,1BTC will be worth 1BTC of today.

[veleten]

Sometime in the next several years, Bitcoin will switch to quantum-resistant alternatives of SHA-256, RIPMD-160, and ECC. Then you simply have to move your bitcoins from the old addresses to the new addresses. Moved coins will be ok, but the rest (including lost coins) will be vulnerable.

Those lost coins will get moved to new addresses which are quantum-resistant. So ... only the coins from genesis block will remain unspendable.

The coins that are not moved within a specified limit of time should be sent back into the mainstream. Their owners probably have lost the keys.

seriously?
how would you feel if your lovely shinies stored for future use suddenly decided to change their allegiance without any reason
just because someone somewhere thought it might be good to set the "lost" coins free?
I'd be pissed

[Dabs]

Sometime in the next several years, Bitcoin will switch to quantum-resistant alternatives of SHA-256, RIPMD-160, and ECC. Then you simply have to move your bitcoins from the old addresses to the new addresses. Moved coins will be ok, but the rest (including lost coins) will be vulnerable.

Those lost coins will get moved to new addresses which are quantum-resistant. So ... only the coins from genesis block will remain unspendable.

The coins that are not moved within a specified limit of time should be sent back into the mainstream. Their owners probably have lost the keys.

seriously?
how would you feel if your lovely shinies stored for future use suddenly decided to change their allegiance without any reason
just because someone somewhere thought it might be good to set the "lost" coins free?
I'd be pissed

As soon as you find out that Bitcoin has a new quantum-resistant alternative of whatever cryptographic primitives we are using, consider sending your existing coins to new addresses, before someone else does.

Just keep up to date on core development, you'd only have to look maybe once a month if you're too busy to look every couple of weeks. And even if you don't look at your wallet for a couple of years, your coins in cold storage that were never spent would probably be safe.

[Coin-Keeper]

Sometime in the next several years, Bitcoin will switch to quantum-resistant alternatives of SHA-256, RIPMD-160, and ECC. Then you simply have to move your bitcoins from the old addresses to the new addresses. Moved coins will be ok, but the rest (including lost coins) will be vulnerable.

Those lost coins will get moved to new addresses which are quantum-resistant. So ... only the coins from genesis block will remain unspendable.

The coins that are not moved within a specified limit of time should be sent back into the mainstream. Their owners probably have lost the keys.

If that was able to be accomplished it should scare the #@$@ out of you.  BTC has to be MATH controlled or its doomsday to our system.  The notion of saying "move your coins by XX date or we'll do it for you" is horrifying at best.  I don't see how this could be mathematically accomplished, and that would mean a large Gov could come along with "super math" and take control.  I am hoping Satoshi's advanced math holds up for the duration.

[cryptoart.com]

We load coins into artwork.  Most of it will not move, and some of the smaller amounts are probably forgotten about.  It may not be much, but it is probably in the $3k-5k over the last couple of years.