Dead Coins

[DannyHamilton]

Note, these concerns have been discussed literally THOUSANDS of times.  Rather than waste everyone's time saying things that have been said a few thousand times already and triggering the exact same responses that have been made a few thousand times already, perhaps it might be worthwhile to search through the forum a bit and read what's already been written about it.  This really isn't a concern.  It was an intentional design feature of bitcoin, not an accidental oversight.  If you don't like the design feature, you are welcome to continue to use fiat currencies where your wealth is stolen from you through the process of supply inflation.

[odolvlobo]

He is right. 21 million is not enough for a global economy.

2,100,000,000,000,000 satoshis are not enough? That's 350 times the number dollars in the world. At 3% annual growth, perhaps sub-satoshi units will be have to be added in 200 years.

Anyway, reiterating what DannyHamilton wrote, these topics have been discussed to death. Use your 4 hours of newbie jail to read the megabytes of discussion over the last few years.

[cryptonibb]

Well try to tell someone he needs to pay you:


0000000000000000000000000000000000000,0000000000000000000000000000001, of a ultra mega micro bitcoin.

Good luck trying to convince the usual joe.

And even this is not what im talking about.

Read the whole post.

People losing wallets and bitcoins, are losing 0,1, 0,01, 0,5, 1 BC, 10 BC,

This units are or will be huge in a few years.

So if 5 million BC are lost in the world, you would need to subdivide that microbitcoins even more....

People HATE numbers. In particular those with lots of zeros in front.

[odolvlobo]

Read the whole post.
People losing wallets and bitcoins, are losing 0,1, 0,01, 0,5, 1 BC, 10 BC,
This units are or will be huge in a few years.
So if 5 million BC are lost in the world, you would need to subdivide that microbitcoins even more....
People HATE numbers. In particular those with lots of zeros in front.

I agree that a lot of zeros is unfriendly, however, the issue of lost bitcoins is not as much as an issue as you think think it is. If 90% of all the bitcoins are lost, then it will add only one more 0. If 99% of all the bitcoins are lost, it will add two more zeros.

Anyway, no need to rehash the discussion here. Try reading these threads:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63690.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=58206.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3951.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3793.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8591.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=198.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104422.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109117.0

[DannyHamilton]

People HATE numbers. In particular those with lots of zeros in front.

Why would you put lots of zeros in front.  That's just dumb.

When you buy a piece of candy, are you told that the price is 0.00000025 hundred grand?

Of course not.  You move the decimal over and give it a new name: 25 cents.

Bitcoin will be the same.

nanobitcoin will be fine for a few centuries at least.  Most likely a nickname will develop naturally.  Perhaps nanos, or nans, or nanobits.

Metric prefixes can continue to be used if necessary beyond that, but there isn't any reason to believe that people won't come up with their own words.

Perhaps rather than 0.00000000000000035 BTC, people will simply say it is 350 sligshmacks (or whatever other name develops naturally).

[tryptamind]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63690.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=58206.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3951.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3793.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7253.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8591.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=198.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104422.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=109117.0

These are REALLY GREAT THREADS, SO APROPOS!  hehe, I am reading them all!
I am on the 5th or 6th, but still have a lingering question, but I shall wait until
I finish them all.  Thank you for posting these excellent threads.

It is such a relief and joy to me to see intelligent people and discussions,
unfortunately, I only find them in certain places on the Internet,
and never in real life   hehe, sad but true!

[tryptamind]

One thing that never ceases to peturb me:

CAPITALISM is making money with money.
CAPITAL is money to be used for investing,
with an expected return on that investment.
CAPITALISM is a subset of the free-market
where money is used to make more money.

Everybody seems conditioned to use the term
CAPITALISM when they should really be using
the term FREE-MARKET.

I am really loving the argument in
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3793.0
Deep/good intellectual boxing match there.

[AliceWonder]

He is right. 21 million is not enough for a global economy.

Sure it is.

Multiply that 21 million by 10^8 and that's how many individual units there are, and that's plenty.

mBTC is how I look at everything. If I need to change that to μBTC as demand increases the only issue is it's a little more difficult to type.

[Liero]

Yeah, there are only 21 million BTC !

[iod_89]

Дa, c мoнeтaми вce cлoжнo, oтфopмaтиpoвaл жecткий диcк, нe coxpaнил дaнныe кoшeлькa, и вce, тю тю мoнeтки)))

[Robixen]

Wouldn't it be possible to change the protocol to alter the amount of bitcoins mined to 1BTC per block after 21mln?

[DannyHamilton]

Wouldn't it be possible to change the protocol to alter the amount of bitcoins mined to 1BTC per block after 21mln?

Sure.  The difficult part is convincing everybody to use your new protocol.

Why would you want to do such a thing anyway?  Is 25 BTC every 10 minutes too much right now for some reason?

[Robixen]

Why would you want to do such a thing anyway?  Is 25 BTC every 10 minutes too much right now for some reason?

I meant after all 21 millions of bitcoins are mined. It would give miners an incentive to mine and would make sure there are always enough coins in circulation.

[DannyHamilton]

Why would you want to do such a thing anyway?  Is 25 BTC every 10 minutes too much right now for some reason?

I meant after all 21 millions of bitcoins are mined. It would give miners an incentive to mine and would make sure there are always enough coins in circulation.

That isn't necessary. There will already be plenty of coins in circulation, and miners already have an incentive from the transaction fees.

The protocol makes a promise.  People make a choice based on that promise.  Why would you change the promise after the system is already widely adopted and used and shake peoples faith in it?  Regardless, it would require near unanimous consensus to make such a change without splitting bitcoin into two separate and incompatible currencies.   Like I said, "The difficult part is convincing everybody to use your new protocol."