I found this story fascinating:
Apparently, there was a 'bug" (or rather technically undefined area) in the original bitcoin code that would produce ANOTHER 21 mil btc starting in the year 256 from the get-go.
The "bug" was eradicated in BIP-42, which was done post-Satoshi.
Without BIP-42, rewards of 50BTC would restart in 256 years, then halvings would continue again (from 50btc/reward to down).
A bit of 'conspiracy' theory on my side, but how do we know that this was
not the Satoshi's intent?
I keep reading about 4 mil 'lost" already in just 14 years.
What if Satoshi surmised that this loss in 256 years (with issuance stopping by year 2140) would bring available bitcoin numbers too low and actually designed the "bug" to revitalize bitcoin about a century after. Interesting, but would not affect things in our lifespan, perhaps.
See the discussion of BIP-42 here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4r878s/in_case_you_missed_it_two_years_ago_bip_42_is/You have a relatively creative imagination, yet what you are describing could not have been Satoshi's intent.
It does not make any sense to start the issuing of blockrewards over again at 50 coins per ever 10 minutes... that would really fuck up incentives and overall value... so that's a bug.. not a "hidden - true intention" of satoshi.
Perhaps it was not his intent, albeit we would never know, I assume, but, then, how to deal with bitcoin "evaporation"?
We, as a humanity, seem to have lost about 20% of ALL bitcoins that would ever be in a short 14 years.
I know that people dismiss it and say that the rest are just getting more valuable. True, but only in a short time.
However, think about it long term: a complete loss is inevitable within relatively short historical time frames.
So far, we were losing btc at a 1.36%
0.286% (of the total supply) a year.
With the same rate of loss going forward, it would be 59.5
350 years until
all btc is lost.
If the loss would decrease by a factor of 10, then it is 595
3500 years.
I find it amusing that the original code of Satoshi had in it a "revitalization" of bitcoin by a new issuance cycle after 256 years.
As 256 is < than 350 (my original number), but > than 59.5 there might
would still be some non-zero btc remain when the new "cycle' would supposedly start, according to the original code, therefore, bitcoin never 'evaporates' fully and instead, revitalizes. If the rate of loss remains at 1.36% a year, all bitcoin evaporates before even the original Satoshi's solution (or omission/caveat) can work.
There could be another solution (but I like Satoshi's better):
1. Change to the address system so everybody has to send their btc every, say, 50
100 years.
2. From that, surmise the actual "losses" and make a small random seepage of new btc, so total number never exceeds 21 mil. Not sure how to do it in code.
TL;DR All bitcoin will eventually "evaporate" according to the current code and historical human behavior. BIP-42 might have been detrimental to the future (hundreds of years from now).
EDIT: the math is even worse: 1.36% loss a year, see correction. We would need to know the average loss per year pretty soon, maybe in the next couple of decades.
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