Coin Recycling

[george51]

I know this has been discussed before - and I've read some of the old threads on it.

But how feasible is this to implement?

Say if you have coins that haven't moved for 50?/100? years - could you add them back into circulation? Via the miners - also potentially more incentive to keep mining? a Little bit of extra on top of the Tx fees?

I like the idea of having the Bitcoin client move coins every X years automatically to avoid you having to do anything and falling foul of the 50/100 year limit. And if you make the limit say 100 years no one could be saving for that long, so thereby almost undoubtedly meaning that the coins are lost.
Would this be a difficult change to add?

What are the disadvantages? vs what are the advantages?

I know you could theoretically have the bitcoin network with just 1 bitcoin but surely ensuring that lost coins are recycled if they are indeed lost, not too often (hence 100 years or so), is the best option?

Opinions?

[wumpus]

There is some level of psychological attractiveness to making sure that all coins remain in circulation.

It's certainly possible to implement this: there would need to be consensus to ignore all blocks older than a certain number of blocks, as well as add unspent outputs in those blocks to the miner reward.

But it would create a very weird and irregular incentive for miners around the 100-year mark as some early blocks may cause thousands of coins to re-enter circulation. Even by today's standards these are enormous amounts.

So it may be preferable to simply consider them dead.

[Abdussamad]

Coin Recycling Stealing

FTFY

[george51]

Coin Recycling Stealing

FTFY

Useful input - surely if the coins haven't been touched in 100 years it can't be counted as stealing - the way I look at it is that at the beginning, before most people here had even heard of bitcoin, people tried it for a while didn't really see it going anywhere and subsequently deleted/lost/no longer have access to wallet.dat with potentially 100's/1000's of coins.

That would no longer happen today, as the idea of bitcoin is publicised more, and people know its got worth. Look for example at the story of the harddrive in the landfill with ~6K (if i remember right) bitcoins in.

There is some level of psychological attractiveness to making sure that all coins remain in circulation.

It's certainly possible to implement this: there would need to be consensus to ignore all blocks older than a certain number of blocks, as well as add unspent outputs in those blocks to the miner reward.

But it would create a very weird and irregular incentive for miners around the 100-year mark as some early blocks may cause thousands of coins to re-enter circulation. Even by today's standards these are enormous amounts.

So it may be preferable to simply consider them dead.

Okay point taken - but this irregular incentive would die down, as I believe, although people will always still lose coins there will be nothing like the amount that was lost at the beginning. Also could this be controlled by adding an artificial maximum added to the miners reward? so only x coins per block can be claimed from coins older that 100 years?

[Abdussamad]

Useful input - surely if the coins haven't been touched in 100 years it can't be counted as stealing

Yes it is still stealing.

- the way I look at it is that at the beginning, before most people here had even heard of bitcoin, people tried it for a while didn't really see it going anywhere and subsequently deleted/lost/no longer have access to wallet.dat with potentially 100's/1000's of coins.

This is exactly why it is stealing. You are not only stealing from the original owner of the coins. You are also stealing from every other bitcoin owner on the planet. Why? Because our coins are more valuable because of all the lost coins. If those lost coins start circulating again our coins become slightly less valuable for it.

[george51]

Useful input - surely if the coins haven't been touched in 100 years it can't be counted as stealing

Yes it is still stealing.

- the way I look at it is that at the beginning, before most people here had even heard of bitcoin, people tried it for a while didn't really see it going anywhere and subsequently deleted/lost/no longer have access to wallet.dat with potentially 100's/1000's of coins.

This is exactly why it is stealing. You are not only stealing from the original owner of the coins. You are also stealing from every other bitcoin owner on the planet. Why? Because our coins are more valuable because of all the lost coins. If those lost coins start circulating again our coins become slightly less valuable for it.

But does it actually reduce the value? You could run the bitcoin network of 1 bitcoin, you would just have to keep making it smaller denominations. Likewise if you just 'lose' coins surely you get to a point where you just make it a smaller demoniation and the end state hasn't changed?
I don't foresee adding the lost coins back in, in 100? years time making a significant difference? if it was put to a vote? everyone agreed. Would it really affect the price? especially if you limited the amount of coins that could be bought back in per block?

[Abdussamad]

Useful input - surely if the coins haven't been touched in 100 years it can't be counted as stealing

Yes it is still stealing.

- the way I look at it is that at the beginning, before most people here had even heard of bitcoin, people tried it for a while didn't really see it going anywhere and subsequently deleted/lost/no longer have access to wallet.dat with potentially 100's/1000's of coins.

This is exactly why it is stealing. You are not only stealing from the original owner of the coins. You are also stealing from every other bitcoin owner on the planet. Why? Because our coins are more valuable because of all the lost coins. If those lost coins start circulating again our coins become slightly less valuable for it.

But does it actually reduce the value? You could run the bitcoin network of 1 bitcoin, you would just have to keep making it smaller denominations. Likewise if you just 'lose' coins surely you get to a point where you just make it a smaller demoniation and the end state hasn't changed?
I don't foresee adding the lost coins back in, in 100? years time making a significant difference? if it was put to a vote? everyone agreed. Would it really affect the price? especially if you limited the amount of coins that could be bought back in per block?

Where do you stop then? First bring dormant coins back into circulation. Then start issuing more coins beyond the 21 million hard limit. Then start issuing unlimited coins based on votes/central bank of bitcoin/government fiat/religious fiat whatever. Pretty soon bitcoin turns into just another currency.

This is a slippery slope.

[extro24]

Freicoin automatically recycles lost coins through demurrage, so the number of coins in circulation remains at 100 million forever. 

But I don't see the Bitcoin gold bugs agreeing to something like that.  They love the early adopter profits too much.

[black_swan]

Coin Recycling Stealing

FTFY

Useful input - surely if the coins haven't been touched in 100 years it can't be counted as stealing - the way I look at it is that at the beginning, before most people here had even heard of bitcoin, people tried it for a while didn't really see it going anywhere and subsequently deleted/lost/no longer have access to wallet.dat with potentially 100's/1000's of coins.

That would no longer happen today, as the idea of bitcoin is publicised more, and people know its got worth. Look for example at the story of the harddrive in the landfill with ~6K (if i remember right) bitcoins in.

There is some level of psychological attractiveness to making sure that all coins remain in circulation.

It's certainly possible to implement this: there would need to be consensus to ignore all blocks older than a certain number of blocks, as well as add unspent outputs in those blocks to the miner reward.

But it would create a very weird and irregular incentive for miners around the 100-year mark as some early blocks may cause thousands of coins to re-enter circulation. Even by today's standards these are enormous amounts.

So it may be preferable to simply consider them dead.

Okay point taken - but this irregular incentive would die down, as I believe, although people will always still lose coins there will be nothing like the amount that was lost at the beginning. Also could this be controlled by adding an artificial maximum added to the miners reward? so only x coins per block can be claimed from coins older that 100 years?

I think it would be better to continue with the current mining reward at the time the unused coins are released and round it up to the next integer (1, in case the reward is 0). This shouldn't attract miners more than it does already.
I think it's a strong psychological point and the community should come up with a solution as the existence of 21 millions coins is one the selling point here

[wumpus]

But I don't see the Bitcoin gold bugs agreeing to something like that.  They love the early adopter profits too much.

That's not really a good argument against it, 100 years should be enough time for any early adopter that still has access to them to move their coins.

[withnail]

Demurrage is certainly a step in the right direction, to discourage hoarding and, in the long term, to prevent wealth from being concentrated in a minority of backwards thinking money-mad homo sapiens. But right now the people behind it want a "federal reserve"-like institution, and that is a bad idea.

It is interesting to see that most people here embrace the technical aspects of bitcoin but still hang on to a capitalistic ideology. I think we can do better than that.

[mantaxer]

the whored coins stabalise the market

[Abdussamad]

That's not really a good argument against it, 100 years should be enough time for any early adopter that still has access to them to move their coins.

What about coins that are time locked by some arrangement or another?

What about people that are living under a rock and never learn in time that their coins need to be moved or they will be distributed like candy among miners? Yes there are people like that in this world.

IMO any talk of "redistributing" bitcoin wealth needs to consider these and other scenarios.

[Nancarrow]

Coin Recycling Stealing

FTFY

  That didn't take long. Thankfully this thought-stopper failed as it always does.

[wumpus]

IMO any talk of "redistributing" bitcoin wealth needs to consider these and other scenarios.

I'm not suggesting redistribution at all. It is a possibility, but it doesn't have to be done.

"Considering them dead" after 100 years would be OK with me as well, to make sure that they won't suddenly move again and upset the market.

In any case, let this bridge be crossed by people in ~80 years, if anyone still cares by that time. This is a completely philosophical discourse at this point.

[Nancarrow]

What about coins that are time locked by some arrangement or another?

Yep, definitely needs thinking about. I'm not terribly familiar with the current protocol's time-locking mechanism, but isn't the 'time-lockedness' of funds recorded in the blockchain somehow? If it is distinguished in the blockchain, the funds can be ignored by any proposed recycling mechanism.

What about people that are living under a rock and never learn in time that their coins need to be moved or they will be distributed like candy among miners? Yes there are people like that in this world.

Here I have less sympathy. There can be no such thing as a truly responsibility-free currency. Keeping up to speed with what is going on with one's currency is, it seems to me, the bare minimum of responsibility to expect of someone. Especially if, as coin-recycling advocates usually propose, the time-frame involved is very long, and the efforts that would be made to inform all users of the protocol change would be intensive. Today someone can come along and post 'I had 100 BTC but I've lost my private key, I demand the miners send me another 100BTC'. Such a person would be rightly told to go to hell. I don't get why such a response would be inappropriate to someone who 'lived under a rock' during the, say, 20 years or whatever during which the protocol was being changed.

IMO any talk of "redistributing" bitcoin wealth needs to consider these and other scenarios.

Absolutely - it'd be probably the strongest protocol change bitcoin has yet undergone. Such changes should not be made lightly. They should also not be dismissed summarily, and in particular, not with attempts to smear their proponents.

[Nancarrow]

IMO any talk of "redistributing" bitcoin wealth needs to consider these and other scenarios.

I'm not suggesting redistribution at all.

Well you are. But you're suggesting redistribution of coins that have almost certainly been lost, precisely BECAUSE of the small uncertainty over whether or not they have been lost.
And you're doing it for the same reason we all do:

"Considering them dead" after 100 years would be OK with me though, to make sure that they won't suddenly move again and upset the market.

And that's a perfectly cromulent position to take. Don't run away from the word 'redistribution' because a bunch of other people have declared that it is a dirty word. Don't ever let other people get away with framing your debate for you!

[justusranvier]

What if we could invent a calculator that could, under certain circumstances, conclude that 2+2=5? If that a feature that we should add to a calculator?

No, a calculator that concludes that 2+2=5 is broken.

Adding the ability to "recover" coins isn't a feature that can just be added - it's a fundamental transformation into its opposite.

Bitcoin is a distributed computer that processes scripts. Its entire design is focused on making it possible for every participant worldwide to come to a perfect bit-for-bit identical consensus regarding whether or not scripts have been processed accurately.

The only way to recover unspent outputs is to negate this fundamental reason the Bitcoin protocol exists by disregarding their scripts. Once you do that the new thing you've created isn't Bitcoin any more.



The is the most polite reply to this topic I am ever likely write again. This topic is extremely tiresome in no small part because it pops up again regularly via people who are either trolling or who don't understand how to use a search engine and it's a lot easier to just tell them to fuck off each time than rehash this over and over again.

[kjj]

But does it actually reduce the value? You could run the bitcoin network of 1 bitcoin, you would just have to keep making it smaller denominations. Likewise if you just 'lose' coins surely you get to a point where you just make it a smaller demoniation and the end state hasn't changed?
I don't foresee adding the lost coins back in, in 100? years time making a significant difference? if it was put to a vote? everyone agreed. Would it really affect the price? especially if you limited the amount of coins that could be bought back in per block?

If it doesn't do anything, then why do you want to do it?

[BurtW]

I know this has been discussed before - and I've read some of the old threads on it.

Then you know exactly what it going to be said in this thread.  Again. This very same thread has been repeated dozens and dozens of times.  The outcome is predictable.

Let me try to stop this madness:  any change of the type you are discussing (or will discuss) in this thread constitues a new alt coin.  Discussing new alt coins, maybe interesting.  Discussing changes to the Bitcoin protocol of this type, not interesting at all because they will never happen.

Also, why start yet another thread on the same worthless subject?  Go find one of the other threads and add to it.