How about setting a MAX coin age ?!

[LuckyXIII]

I've never quite understood the natural objection to lost coins that some people seem to have.  Many other perceived problems with Bitcoin are explained but this one is usually taken as axiomatic.

Is it the lost granularity that concerns people?  Is it a fear that people will hoard bitcoins? (Economic flamewar aside, I don't see why hoarders would be less likely to lose coins than everyone else).

Perhaps it's just because existing currencies are not so fragile.  I don't see a gold forum parallel to bitcointalk.org with topics like "Help!  I accidentally launched 3.8 tonnes of gold into deep space."

The problem as I understand it is that there is a finite number of Bitcoins that will be mined, 21 Million. After that any coins that are hoarded and forgot about or destroyed by damaged media, are out of circulation, forever. This will lead to the number of BTC shinking over time.

It happens all the time with paper money and coins. They are destroyed, but the government replenishes the supply by printing more. What will happen to the value of Bitcoins once their is no printing more and the supply of them is diminishing?

[edd]

I've never quite understood the natural objection to lost coins that some people seem to have.  Many other perceived problems with Bitcoin are explained but this one is usually taken as axiomatic.

Is it the lost granularity that concerns people?  Is it a fear that people will hoard bitcoins? (Economic flamewar aside, I don't see why hoarders would be less likely to lose coins than everyone else).

Perhaps it's just because existing currencies are not so fragile.  I don't see a gold forum parallel to bitcointalk.org with topics like "Help!  I accidentally launched 3.8 tonnes of gold into deep space."

The problem as I understand it is that there is a finite number of Bitcoins that will be mined, 21 Million. After that any coins that are hoarded and forgot about or destroyed by damaged media, are out of circulation, forever. This will lead to the number of BTC shinking over time.

This is correct but it's not really a "problem."

[LuckyXIII]

I've never quite understood the natural objection to lost coins that some people seem to have.  Many other perceived problems with Bitcoin are explained but this one is usually taken as axiomatic.

Is it the lost granularity that concerns people?  Is it a fear that people will hoard bitcoins? (Economic flamewar aside, I don't see why hoarders would be less likely to lose coins than everyone else).

Perhaps it's just because existing currencies are not so fragile.  I don't see a gold forum parallel to bitcointalk.org with topics like "Help!  I accidentally launched 3.8 tonnes of gold into deep space."

The problem as I understand it is that there is a finite number of Bitcoins that will be mined, 21 Million. After that any coins that are hoarded and forgot about or destroyed by damaged media, are out of circulation, forever. This will lead to the number of BTC shinking over time.

This is correct but it's not really a "problem."

I suppose it depends on the rate of Bitcoins being destroyed. I can't imagine a shrinking number of coins in cirulation won't have any effect at all on their value.

[PrintMule]

AGAIN??
Come on guys, stop stealing money from people keeping it in their vault!
Yes it has been discussed a thousand times, a least once every two months, did you search?

You could make that money that isn't transferred every year is lost.
AND THEN IF YOU ARE A HOARDER YOU JUST MOVE YOUR MONEY BETWEEN YOUR 2 WALLETS ONCE A YEAR.
and if they money is not moved, then it's probably lost or forgotten.
what's bad there?

also will help with statistical data, otherwise you'll never know if someone holds a million btc ace in his sleeve or something.

[PrintMule]

also will probably help with blockchain size

[jackjack]

AGAIN??
Come on guys, stop stealing money from people keeping it in their vault!
Yes it has been discussed a thousand times, a least once every two months, did you search?

You could make that money that isn't transferred every year is lost.
AND THEN IF YOU ARE A HOARDER YOU JUST MOVE YOUR MONEY BETWEEN YOUR 2 WALLETS ONCE A YEAR.
and if they money is not moved, then it's probably lost or forgotten.
what's bad there?

also will help with statistical data, otherwise you'll never know if someone holds a million btc ace in his sleeve or something.

Read the links in the first page
Think what you want, it will never happen

[jackjack]

also will probably help with blockchain size

Yeah, it's sure that moving coins that are supposed not to move, thus creating useless transactions, will definitely help the blockchain size

[Rampion]

I've never quite understood the natural objection to lost coins that some people seem to have.  Many other perceived problems with Bitcoin are explained but this one is usually taken as axiomatic.

Is it the lost granularity that concerns people?  Is it a fear that people will hoard bitcoins? (Economic flamewar aside, I don't see why hoarders would be less likely to lose coins than everyone else).

Perhaps it's just because existing currencies are not so fragile.  I don't see a gold forum parallel to bitcointalk.org with topics like "Help!  I accidentally launched 3.8 tonnes of gold into deep space."

The problem as I understand it is that there is a finite number of Bitcoins that will be mined, 21 Million. After that any coins that are hoarded and forgot about or destroyed by damaged media, are out of circulation, forever. This will lead to the number of BTC shinking over time.

This is correct but it's not really a "problem."

I suppose it depends on the rate of Bitcoins being destroyed. I can't imagine a shrinking number of coins in cirulation won't have any effect at all on their value.

Man. Just think before you type. There are 100,000,000 Satoshis for each Bitcoin. Do the math instead of babbling. And please, after you have done the math, be so kind to let me know what rate of coin destruction we need to have for this being a problem in, let's say, 2200.

[malevolent]

Stealing peoples' bitcoin retirement funds... great.

You could make that money that isn't transferred every year is lost.
AND THEN IF YOU ARE A HOARDER YOU JUST MOVE YOUR MONEY BETWEEN YOUR 2 WALLETS ONCE A YEAR.
and if they money is not moved, then it's probably lost or forgotten.
what's bad there?
also will help with statistical data, otherwise you'll never know if someone holds a million btc ace in his sleeve or something.

We could make that your car is sold and money redistributed to your neighbours if you don't drive it at least once a month because it can corrode if you leave it for too long.

[lophie]

Go Freidcoin then for teh demurrage

[ixne]

I rarely use the word "moron," but this ridiculous argument about lost coins is one of my pet peeves.  You guys arguing that we should somehow reclaim piles of coins are taking a wonderfully elegant and intuitive system and trying to turn it into an awkward game of coin twister or gotcha by making people move coins around pointlessly.

There is a very efficient and, above all, fair way to deal with lost coins - do nothing.  If the coins are truly lost, the value of those lost coins is distributed throughout all remaining bitcoins by increasing their scarcity.

There is $1.15 trillion US dollars in circulation right now - that's $1,150,000,000,000.00, including cents.  That means that Bitcoin could replace all the US dollars (and cents) in circulation at the same granularity with only 1.15 million BTC, or 10% of what's currently in circulation, or roughly 5% of all BTC that will be mined.  If somehow 95% of bitcoins get lost AND it becomes as pervasive as the US dollar, then you have the right to resurrect this dead horse and beat it.

[Trongersoll]

Would you ridcule someone who is OCD for putting thing in order or wanting everything a certain way? the people who want to recover lost coins are similar, it grates on them that there are, what they consider, wasted coins. Wasted coins represent wasted work to them. They want all their Ducks in  a row and all the coins in use.

We just need to explain to them that this isn't what everyone else wants and that the system is fine as is and then move on. They won't see, or agree with what the majority of us says, but they will just be whistling in the wind.

[edd]

Would you ridcule someone who is OCD for putting thing in order or wanting everything a certain way? the people who want to recover lost coins are similar, it grates on them that there are, what they consider, wasted coins. Wasted coins represent wasted work to them. They want all their Ducks in  a row and all the coins in use.

We just need to explain to them that this isn't what everyone else wants and that the system is fine as is and then move on. They won't see, or agree with what the majority of us says, but they will just be whistling in the wind.

I disagree. IMO, those who wish to force a method of reclaiming "lost" coins into the protocol are more likely practitioners of the xkcd method of extrapolating.

[Welsh]

This has been posted far too many times now. So let me ask you, if you owned 100BTC and couldn't access you're wallet for some reason (lost passphrase etc). Then one day you remember or find the pass phrase. But, when you go to take out you're BTC, it's GONE.

How would you feel?

[cr1776]

And by going to tenths, hundredths or thousandths (etc) of a satoshi, further granularity is possible if needed.

I rarely use the word "moron," but this ridiculous argument about lost coins is one of my pet peeves.  You guys arguing that we should somehow reclaim piles of coins are taking a wonderfully elegant and intuitive system and trying to turn it into an awkward game of coin twister or gotcha by making people move coins around pointlessly.

There is a very efficient and, above all, fair way to deal with lost coins - do nothing.  If the coins are truly lost, the value of those lost coins is distributed throughout all remaining bitcoins by increasing their scarcity.

There is $1.15 trillion US dollars in circulation right now - that's $1,150,000,000,000.00, including cents.  That means that Bitcoin could replace all the US dollars (and cents) in circulation at the same granularity with only 1.15 million BTC, or 10% of what's currently in circulation, or roughly 5% of all BTC that will be mined.  If somehow 95% of bitcoins get lost AND it becomes as pervasive as the US dollar, then you have the right to resurrect this dead horse and beat it.

[OnkelPaul]

And by going to tenths, hundredths or thousandths (etc) of a satoshi, further granularity is possible if needed.

No. Satoshi is the minimum granularity (with the current blockchain format).
For further division, you'd either have to change the format and a majority of clients (basically, it would suffice if the 5 biggest mining pools made the change) or keep smaller amounts off-balance (i.e. outside the blockchain). That would mean additional bookkeeping, perhaps a system such as ripple could be used for this, but in general, it should be avoided. One of the elegant aspects of Bitcoin is that you can keep control over your funds yourself. Of course, with online wallets people already give up a bit of this essential ownership, maybe they would be ok with keeping sub-Satoshi balances in an external system as well and just hold their big savings within bitcoin.

Onkel Paul

[jackjack]

And by going to tenths, hundredths or thousandths (etc) of a satoshi, further granularity is possible if needed.

No. Satoshi is the minimum granularity (with the current blockchain format).
For further division, you'd either have to change the format and a majority of clients (basically, it would suffice if the 5 biggest mining pools made the change) or keep smaller amounts off-balance (i.e. outside the blockchain). That would mean additional bookkeeping, perhaps a system such as ripple could be used for this, but in general, it should be avoided. One of the elegant aspects of Bitcoin is that you can keep control over your funds yourself. Of course, with online wallets people already give up a bit of this essential ownership, maybe they would be ok with keeping sub-Satoshi balances in an external system as well and just hold their big savings within bitcoin.

Onkel Paul

True but I'm not sure we need more granularity than the one provided by 2.1e15 units