What to do with lost bitcoins

[deisik]

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

[AgentofCoin]

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

No. If you allow a backdoor around privatekey control, that allows the footing for regulators.

Now, for a person to set up a Will that transfers the bitcoins to their heirs, it will need to be the
direct transfer of paper wallets or etc or a multi-sig transaction with the deceased's lawyer and executor.
It would all be outlined in the Will with all parties being told in advanced and provided the keys to do this
later multi-sig tx after death, as instructed.

In the event that Coinbase held the deceased coins, yes, the heirs would likely need to file paper work with
Coinbase to have those transferred just as stock and bonds would be under normal circumstances.

Satoshi intended that users would be their own banks.
If someone held their coins in thirdparty sites, that is not what Satoshi intended.
If someone held paperwallets or etc, that is what Satoshi intended.
If someone held multi-sig with other parties, that is what Satoshi envisioned.

Since Bitcoin is not regulated and is a p2p currency/asset, it is harder to guarantee the transfer to heirs.
It is the responsibility of the btc holder to make preparations about this issue, obviously prior to their death.

[deisik]

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

No. If you allow a backdoor around privatekey control, that allows the footing for regulators

I still can't fathom how that could possibly allow any footing for regulating Bitcoin by the authorities. Let's assume that funds can be forcefully moved without the necessity of possessing the keys. After all, that's what my suggestion comes down to. For example, if some variable associated with the address is set to, say, 50, which should be interpreted in terms of years, after that period of time, coins get moved to another address or just considered as unmined and the transaction(s) which added these coins to that address are marked as invalid in the next block. But that would still have to be confirmed by the whole network, right? So where is the backdoor for regulating Bitcoin here?

Or any backdoor at all, for that matter?

[equator]

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

No. If you allow a backdoor around privatekey control, that allows the footing for regulators

I still can't fathom how that could possibly allow any footing for regulating Bitcoin by the authorities. Let's assume that funds can be forcefully moved without the necessity of possessing the keys. After all, that's what my suggestion comes down to. For example, if some variable associated with the address is set to, say, 50, which should be interpreted in terms of years, after that period of time, coins get moved to another address or just considered as unmined and the transaction(s) which added these coins to that address are marked as invalid in the next block. But that would still have to be confirmed by the whole network, right? So where is the backdoor for regulating Bitcoin here?

Or any backdoor at all, for that matter?

What ever you say but what you are saying is killing the theory of Bitcoin security system. If you are telling that  after 50 yrs that wallet address will become null, if anyone like me itself i have stored my bitcoin in a wallet and did not touched my wallet for 50 years then will it means that my wallet address stored bitcoin will also considered as owner is no more and it will be released without getting my consent then it is called theft, How can you tell that bitcoin address which is not operated for more then 50 yrs will be considered as dead wallet address.

What ever you are telling is not appropriate because then their wont be any difference between bitcoin and fiat currency banking system.

[AgentofCoin]

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

No. If you allow a backdoor around privatekey control, that allows the footing for regulators

I still can't fathom how that could possibly allow any footing for regulating Bitcoin by the authorities. Let's assume that funds can be forcefully moved without the necessity of possessing the keys. After all, that's what my suggestion comes down to. For example, if some variable associated with the address is set to, say, 50, which should be interpreted in terms of years, after that period of time, coins get moved to another address or just considered as unmined and the transaction(s) which added these coins to that address are marked as invalid in the next block. But that would still have to be confirmed by the whole network, right?

So where is the backdoor for regulating Bitcoin here?

Very simply, if your variable is met at 50 years, the coins would need to move without a privatekey telling them so.
Basically, your original tx would have stated that if no movement within 50, then selfmove to coin jar or other.
The issue here is that there can be no "selfmove" without another mechanism like a privatekey.
The only way to do that is by a backdoor.

But if we used invalidation as you have stated prior, to move those coins after 50 years, 50 years of unrelated
blocks would all be invalidated. It is not possible to invalidate a specific amount of btc that has already been
deemed valid for over 50 years. After a bitcoin tx has been deemed valid, it can never be invalidated.
To invalidate it would effectively mean that when the miner found those btc, they made an invalid block.
All blocks built upon that invalid block are all then invalid.

Trust me, I think it is not possible to do the invalidation idea.
And the privatekey backdoor one would never been agreed to.

[NorrisK]

I don't think it will ever become a major problem.

The chance of losing many coins has already dropped a lot since the coins are much more valuable. If something is valuable, you care more about it and run a small risk. In addition, the days of people losing 10000 bitcoin wallets are also over.

Many people don't move their coins a lot. Marking them as public property is stuipid as it forces you to make silly transactions just to keep your coins active.

It is quite simple as is, you own the private key, you control the addresses associated to them.

[Yuuto]

But, doesn't that take away the entire point of bitcoin as a safe haven? That means people are forced to move their coins every 10 years or so, and keep track of it. Might not sound like a big deal, but it is annoying and if you forget about it, then it's lost forever.

Also another problem is how are you going to distribute the coins? You said that you could use it to finance scientific research, so how will we reach consensus? How will be pick a legitimate scientific research team to invest in? In my opinion all of this requires centralisation, which is against the very idea why bitcoin is created in the first place.

[Rahar02]

We all know that there can be no more than 21M bitcoins. We also know that every day some bitcoins get lost forever. That means that they still exist on the blockchain, but no one can access them since the keys are lost. I don't think that this is a right thing. We should recover these coins somehow, and that issue could be addressed eventually. I suggest setting a grace period of, say, 10 years (or 50 years if 10 years is too little) after which all wallets that remain untouched during that time and not reclaimed by anyone, should be declared as public property. The transactions that credited these bitcoins to such a wallet should be cancelled (just like correcting entries are made in a real ledger), and the coins should be moved to a new wallet, for example, to finance scientific research...

In this way, we will always have 21M bitcoins after the last bitcoin is mined and can also "resurrect" lost bitcoins for the common good

To avoid asking and answering the same things all over again, I add below important clarification:

First, there is no way to technically distinguish between lost coins and purposefully unmoved coins.
They both are the same and it is not reasonable to make people move their coins every so often in
order to prove that they still have control. If in the event, a protocol change is proposed that users
will need to transfer their coins to "safer addresses" that is done as a security measure, not just so
that the devs/miners know "we can't take them back" from them

What about adding some parameter which would basically say that the coins from this wallet shouldn't be moved under any circumstances with default being set to donating them after some period. That might work very much like organ donation, and the way voluntary consent is obtained (opt-in vs opt-out). In this case, both options can be used, i.e. in the case of an opt-out the coins of anyone who has not explicitly refused to donate them will be moved after the expiration of the timeout, or that timeout period could be set by default to infinity effectively meaning that the coins should never be moved. That would be the opt-in option, i.e. only the coins of those who have given explicit consent will be donated...

Also, instead of donating coins, they might be marked as just not yet mined

This mindset contradicts one of the reasons why Satoshi created Bitcoin in the first place.
Your money is your money and in theory, no one can take it away under any circumstances.
Comparing what regulated banks are allowed to do should not be applied to Bitcoin ever.

Shrouds have no pockets

There is no way anyone could access to lost bitcoin since Mr.Satoshi and the founders created blockchain technology that way.
We don't not how much bitcoin already lost until now and looks like so hard to track down all of it, I think we just let it go, nevermind.

[crwth]

Whatever happened on why they lost it, we would never know. There's no way of determining if it's just unmoved or forgotten. The beauty of bitcoin is it's decentralized; no one could ever control your money, just you. And it will be just yours. Either you lost access to your wallet or just forgot (that would be sad). There's nothing more you can do. It's just time to move on, and let go. Move forward to new bitcoins.

[Pattberry]

this is the loop hole of bitcoins and its blockchain .and i think in the future run wehn the top  programmers will find a good solution for this problem and recover all the bitcoins that have been lost  then it would be awesome .
There is no way that anyone could do that and if someones does that then how safe is others bitcoin in their own wallet if they could bring those that are lost.So this is just an impossible thing to do.The lost coins are lost fore ever.

[putoamo63]

I don't think we have to do anything... Bitcoin have 9 decimals and a lot of units, no matter if some of them are unreachable. It is the price for descentralization.

[mobnepal]

I don't think there is any need to do this, why we need 21 million bitcoin exactly if there will be less than 21 million its better for price growth of bitcoin. Nobody really care about lost bitcoins other than the one who have lost private keys of those bitcoin addresses.

< 21 million bitcoin = less supply with high demand = price will sky rocket.

[deisik]

I still can't fathom how that could possibly allow any footing for regulating Bitcoin by the authorities. Let's assume that funds can be forcefully moved without the necessity of possessing the keys. After all, that's what my suggestion comes down to. For example, if some variable associated with the address is set to, say, 50, which should be interpreted in terms of years, after that period of time, coins get moved to another address or just considered as unmined and the transaction(s) which added these coins to that address are marked as invalid in the next block. But that would still have to be confirmed by the whole network, right?

So where is the backdoor for regulating Bitcoin here?

Very simply, if your variable is met at 50 years, the coins would need to move without a privatekey telling them so.
Basically, your original tx would have stated that if no movement within 50, then selfmove to coin jar or other.
The issue here is that there can be no "selfmove" without another mechanism like a privatekey.
The only way to do that is by a backdoor.

Indeed, there is no such mechanism right now, but this doesn't mean that it can't be implemented and without affecting anything done before. Also, I don't see why all previous blocks should be invalidated. You seem to assume that the original transaction that put the money into the wallet (and which also set its lifetime to 50 years) should be invalidated, whereas in fact it will remain valid forever. I talk about a new transaction that would just end its term, if you want me to put it this way. Thereby, there is no point in invalidating any blocks or transactions at all...

And I still can't understand how that could potentially contribute to possible government regulations

[Yutikas_11920]

I don't think we have to do anything... Bitcoin have 9 decimals and a lot of units, no matter if some of them are unreachable. It is the price for descentralization.

I don't know exactly what to do if it happens, but I know that it all is something that doesn't have a bad way to all things. But nonetheless we should use bitcoin for activity is good, indeed the bitcoin has 9 decimal but that will make us get something good thing is when we can benefit. And that's all we can get when holding comes.So, indeed we should always do the promotion of all persons so that the growth of the bitcoin is getting better and more and has a very big advantage. Without growth promotion bitcoin will only end on something a bad thing

[jovs]

I think it is better to don't do anything because it can affect the price of bitcoin if they are planning to reverse bitcoin from the address when they are sent the bitcoin.. And this is the advantage of bitcoin because no one can access and touch that bitcoin to sell it that can affect the value of bitcoin so if no one can touch it even we are selling all our bitcoin it has still a value because some bitcoin are lose. and no one can sell it.

Yes, the value of a bitcoin will just go down once its holders sell it cheaper than its current value. Also, bitcoin's value will just go up when its buyer bought it higher than its current value.

Hence, we should not worry about the lose of bitcoin because of mining. It's value won't fall that much.Just hold it, it'll grow up.

[defined]

A bitcoin lost is a bitcoin gained by all bitcoin owners. It increases the value of the remaining coins. Its value comes from being scarce.

[ranochigo]

We all know that there can be no more than 21M bitcoins. We also know that every day some bitcoins get lost forever. That means that they still exist on the blockchain, but no one can access them since the keys are lost. I don't think that this is a right thing. We should recover these coins somehow, and that issue could be addressed eventually. I suggest setting a grace period of, say, 10 years (or 50 years if 10 years is too little) after which all wallets that remain untouched during that time and not reclaimed by anyone, should be declared as public property. The transactions that credited these bitcoins to such a wallet should be cancelled (just like correcting entries are made in a real ledger), and the coins should be moved to a new wallet, for example, to finance scientific research...

It isn't important to have 21 million Bitcoin. Bitcoin can divided into smaller part and each unit of Bitcoin becomes much more valuable if more coins are getting lost. If you are moving the coins from an address that has no activity for a long time, what is the difference between this and theft? The coins are rightfully the owner's even if they don't want to touch it or has lost it.

It would be impossible for the community to agree on which foundation the coins will go to anyway.

[deisik]

But, doesn't that take away the entire point of bitcoin as a safe haven? That means people are forced to move their coins every 10 years or so, and keep track of it. Might not sound like a big deal, but it is annoying and if you forget about it, then it's lost forever

I have already suggested a more robust system. If you don't want your coins forfeited for the common good after you pass away, you might not have to do anything. I suggest adding a variable which would set the lifetime of the transaction or the whole wallet. For example, if the value is set to 50 that would pass as 50 years (0 should obviously mean infinity). After that term expires, a new automatic transaction is generated which doesn't require the private key (since it is generated by the network itself), and all funds from that wallet (or added by that transaction) are either considered as unmined or sent to a Bitcoin piggy bank

After all, isn't Bitcoin all about giving user a choice?

Also another problem is how are you going to distribute the coins? You said that you could use it to finance scientific research, so how will we reach consensus? How will be pick a legitimate scientific research team to invest in? In my opinion all of this requires centralisation, which is against the very idea why bitcoin is created in the first place.

This was just a suggestion. If you don't like this idea you can think of these bitcoins as unmined after they expire

[thisappointed]

What to do with lost bitcoins? Just simply accept the fact the it was already gone, move on and continue on earning some because thinking over and over again where did it go will just make you confused and you will just get yourself stress just because of that.

[deisik]

We all know that there can be no more than 21M bitcoins. We also know that every day some bitcoins get lost forever. That means that they still exist on the blockchain, but no one can access them since the keys are lost. I don't think that this is a right thing. We should recover these coins somehow, and that issue could be addressed eventually. I suggest setting a grace period of, say, 10 years (or 50 years if 10 years is too little) after which all wallets that remain untouched during that time and not reclaimed by anyone, should be declared as public property. The transactions that credited these bitcoins to such a wallet should be cancelled (just like correcting entries are made in a real ledger), and the coins should be moved to a new wallet, for example, to finance scientific research...

It isn't important to have 21 million Bitcoin. Bitcoin can divided into smaller part and each unit of Bitcoin becomes much more valuable if more coins are getting lost. If you are moving the coins from an address that has no activity for a long time, what is the difference between this and theft? The coins are rightfully the owner's even if they don't want to touch it or has lost it

If the owner is no longer alive, these coins should be considered as left for dead too, unless his heirs take possession of them, of course. I think there are a lot of people who would be happy to donate their stashes to charities or, for example, medical research should they pass away (I myself would opt for the scientific research without doubt), but they might want to do it right, to do in the Bitcoin way...

That is, by employing the blockchain itself and not corrupt government agencies