Bitcoin eventually disappear...

[Agraoleom]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

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[Iranus]

Well you posted this in the "Economics" section, so let's make this about economics.

People have an amount of BTC.  The higher the value of their BTC, the more likely they are to keep it in safe locations or spread it between different places.  So the chance of them losing their BTC decreases exponentially as the price rises.

If they lose BTC, the supply decreases, therefore making the remaining BTC supply (marginally) more valuable and making people less likely to lose it.  So it never reaches a point at which there's not enough left.

So basically, no.  It's impossible.

[Agraoleom]

Well you posted this in the "Economics" section, so let's make this about economics.

People have an amount of BTC.  The higher the value of their BTC, the more likely they are to keep it in safe locations or spread it between different places.  So the chance of them losing their BTC decreases exponentially as the price rises.

If they lose BTC, the supply decreases, therefore making the remaining BTC supply (marginally) more valuable and making people less likely to lose it.  So it never reaches a point at which there's not enough left.

So basically, no.  It's impossible.

As long as storage and transactions are handled by humans, there is no way to avoid human errors, regardless of the assets value. Sure it is less likely to be lost, the higher the value. But will it ever be totally secured just because it is of a certain high value.

I am not convinced.

[MakeMoneyBtc]

Well you posted this in the "Economics" section, so let's make this about economics.

People have an amount of BTC.  The higher the value of their BTC, the more likely they are to keep it in safe locations or spread it between different places.  So the chance of them losing their BTC decreases exponentially as the price rises.

If they lose BTC, the supply decreases, therefore making the remaining BTC supply (marginally) more valuable and making people less likely to lose it.  So it never reaches a point at which there's not enough left.

So basically, no.  It's impossible.

They lose that bitcoin but it is not gone. It cant just disappear from wallet. The fact that the person cant acces the wallet doesnt mean the bitcoins doesn't exist. Yeah, bitcoin price is partially determined by the total supply but if you lost your bitcoins wallet thats not going to decrease the total supply. It will remain the same. The price grows every day because it is harder and harder to mine it not because bitcoins are lost every day

[error08]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

You should use 'search function' or google search engine before ask such question, it's obviously and people knows about it, already discussed many times in this forum. Even there are few people who have burned their bitcoin by sent it to burn address deliberately, because the value of the rest will be worth slightly more. We don't know how much bitcoin that has been lost since it can't be accessed anymore due to many reasons.

[BitcoinMuscle]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

Yeah, there is a fixed number of bitcoins but it is harder and harder to mine it. So it will take another 5-10years untill all the bitcoin will be mined.
Even is bitcoins are lost everyday the total supply is to big to be lost all of it. If 4 bitcoins are lost every day it would take 10.000years for all bitcoins to be lost.
Also, the price will be a lot higher when all the bitcoins will be mined so people will be more careful for their wallets.

[Razick]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

Bitcoin is deflationary by nature. This is counter-intuitive to how most of us have been raised on an inflationary economic model (fiat becomes worth less and less over time due to inflation).

What you say is correct, but don't forget the less Bitcoin available means the supply is lower. When supply drops and demand stays the same, it means the price increases. Which means the price of Bitcoin never stops rising over the long term.

[nightmanisrightman]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

Partly I believe yes. Sure people will lose bitcoin and the # of bitcoin will in theory only have the ability to go down once all coins are mined. But that does not mean it will get to a point where bitcoin itself is useless. Also

I dont think anybody tracks bitcoin loss or there isnt an accurate way to track this so we may never know the true circulating supply down to the tee. As long as the internet exists, bitcoin will exist in this world.

[Agraoleom]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

Bitcoin is deflationary by nature. This is counter-intuitive to how most of us have been raised on an inflationary economic model (fiat becomes worth less and less over time due to inflation).

What you say is correct, but don't forget the less Bitcoin available means the supply is lower. When supply drops and demand stays the same, it means the price increases. Which means the price of Bitcoin never stops rising over the long term.

"When supply drops and demand stays the same", this is my point. I think the demand can actually become larger, but it could theoretically reach a point where the amount of Bitcoins are too small that it is no longer attractive.

But I think it would also have to do with what function Bitcoin will play in the end. If its main function will be similar to gold, I guess it could still be an attractive asset no matter how small and expensive amount there will be.

[freebutcaged]

Wrong mate, Bitcoin is not really shrinking, every now and then people are forking the same blockchain creating a total double spent hard fork to have their

Own altcoin, do I have to count them for you one by one or do you know about them already? Bitcoin is not issued by printing like fiat is, price of the coins

Correlates with the total numbers of them, one could claim to have lost access to his coins but after a few years you see the same coins being transferred

And sold, that's why the market will always account for all of the coins.

[player514]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

I think you might be confused with the miner fee and losing Bitcoin. When you send a transaction, yes, you do have to pay a bit extra money, but that money goes into someone else's ledger. Think of bitcoin in terms of blockchain ledgers. It will help your understanding of how the money flows.

Basically, when you send your money out, your ledger decreases and whoever you sent to / whichever overall addresses get coins from your transactions have their ledger balance increased.

[Agraoleom]

Wrong mate, Bitcoin is not really shrinking, every now and then people are forking the same blockchain creating a total double spent hard fork to have their

Own altcoin,

I am talking about Bitcoins, not altcoins...

price of the coins

Correlates with the total numbers of them,

Let's not forget, the demand...

one could claim to have lost access to his coins but after a few years you see the same coins being transferred

And sold, that's why the market will always account for all of the coins.

Really, how do someone get to spend a coin in a lost wallet without knowing the private key to that particular coin in order to sign a transaction, or recovery phrase?

Not possible as I understands it...

[Merovius]

Theoretically all of the bitcoins could disappear if all of the holders of BTC were to somehow lose their wallet files or have all of their devices rendered inoperable. However this is very unlikely to happen because of the sheer number of people who have at least a small amount of BTC stored somewhere. What is more likely to happen is that after all of the BTC is mined the amount of BTC in circulation will slowly decrease due to destruction and accidental losses, thus enabling a gradual increase in the value of each remaining BTC unit. This why some people have adopted "Hodl all the bitcoins" as their motto.

[HabBear]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

Smaller amounts, sure. Cease to exist? Minimal amounts? No.

It would take an awful lot of loss for significant amounts of the bitcoin supply to make an impact. And as money supply reduces it does not have an impact on its usefulness or utility. Bitcoin is divisible to the 100 millionth of a bitcoin, which ensures that it's utility remains intact, regardless of price appreciation or other factors.

[Fortify]

It could happen, as there really is a low circulation of whole bitcoins in the world compared to the amount of people. Over time a lot of them will be lost and have been lost already, I'm not sure many people will like to use tiny decimal amounts in the long run. You could also argue that bitcoin is the first iteration of a working digital currency and it seems inevitable that an improved implementation will take the market share.

[pooya87]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

there are 2,100,000,000,000,000 units available in bitcoin and ~1,660,000,000,000,000 have already been mined. it is possible that after many years a large total number of coins will be lost but there is a very good chance that the amount won't be that big to cause any issues. and certainly bitcoin won't cease to exist because of something like that.

worst case scenario is that a very large amount is lost to a point that scarcity because a serious issue, although highly unlikely but there are solutions for it. such as breaking bitcoin to a smaller unit. in other words truing 1 satoshi to have 1 decimal point (1.0)

[karmamiu]

It could happen, as there really is a low circulation of whole bitcoins in the world compared to the amount of people. Over time a lot of them will be lost and have been lost already, I'm not sure many people will like to use tiny decimal amounts in the long run. You could also argue that bitcoin is the first iteration of a working digital currency and it seems inevitable that an improved implementation will take the market share.

                               This has been also discussed several times in this forum, about retrieving those lost wallets, getting back those lost bitcoin, but i think it wont really affect the price of bitcoin as much as the supply. I agree that as time passes by, more and more users have been adopting bitcoin, the problem is that it would really be a struggle to get, because of the increasing population of users and just limited supply of bitcoin in the world, and to add that up until now it is really hard to mine.

[sofi@]

Yes there is a chance that we lose all bitcoin due to different aspect such as human error like forgetting password or losing their on-line wallets but this can be prevented with proper knowledge on how you protect your bitcoin and having your security codes kept in your private records.

[fiulpro]

Hey..
Yes thats correct I myself have lost a fraction of my bitcoins due to carelessness but the thing is the amount they held wasn't that much important and now since I do hold an amount that I will for sure need for future I am very much concerned about them and keep them secure
...so there you have your answer;
If the people who hold minor amount looses it won't effect the economy that much and.. the people possessing preety higher amount will make sure that they keep their bitcoins protected sono chance of them loosing it and finally its the people  holding large amount of bitcoins only through which the economic value of bitcoins will be regulated, thus even if you loose 0.0000006 btc it won't matter much..
And as you start to accumulate more you will become more.self aware.

[rjbtc2017]

There will be a fixed number if Bitcoins, and people, because of human error, will accidentally lose Bitcoins every now and then.

This must mean that Bitcoin will eventually seize to exist? Or at least shrink to minimal amounts, when it shrinks to a certain level, it will no longer be useful.

Is this correct?

This is possible in a sense of "active coins". Because of human error they might forget that they do have a bitcoin and they may forgot also the passwords, seeds , email account, exchanges accounts, let's say that 21 million coins were already finished mining and there are 300 people which each of them has 1 bitcoin and unfortunately forgot where is it now, 300 x 1 =300 bitcoins,  does this mean that 21 million bitcoin will now be decreased because of human error? , the answer is no, it's still 21 million yet the 300 bitcoin is not active , same with the holders who just holds their bitcoin. Therefore, the active coins that are currently flowing may decrease because of the holders and the people who forgot they have bitcoin but the total amount of bitcoin will never decrease.