Quick poll: heuristic for how long until a coin is considered "abandoned"

[obeygiant]

In how many years of account inactivity ("unspent transaction output," in the case of Bitcoin) do you think it is OK to wipe out someone's money?

- 1 year?
- 5 years?
- 10 years?
- 20 years?
- 50 years?
- 100 years?
- 200 years?
- 500 years?
- "IT IS NEVER OK!"
- Other?

As a reference, in some countries in the "real world," if you don't make a transaction on your checking account for 3 years, your money can be taken away (in Australia it was 7 years and they reduced it to 3).

It's for a Bitcoin fork that I'm developing where there's not a hard limit on coins. The block reward is to be the primary source of coins (1:1 on hashrate, forever) and the main sink is an ~1% depreciation on every coin per month, plus I'm think about adding an "abandoned coin" heuristic to be able to wipe out outputs that go too long unspent, hence this poll.

Thanks!
Obey

[hilariousandco]

In how many years of account inactivity ("unspent transaction output," in the case of Bitcoin) do you think it is OK to wipe out someone's money?

- 1 year?
- 5 years?
- 10 years?
- 20 years?
- 50 years?
- 100 years?
- 200 years?
- 500 years?
- "IT IS NEVER OK!"
- Other?

As a reference, in some countries in the "real world," if you don't make a transaction on your checking account for 3 years, your money can be taken away (in Australia it was 7 years and they reduced it to 3).

It's for a Bitcoin fork that I'm developing where there's not a hard limit on coins. The block reward is to be the primary source of coins (1:1 on hashrate, forever) and the main sink is an ~1% depreciation on every coin per month, plus I'm think about adding an "abandoned coin" heuristic to be able to wipe out outputs that go too long unspent, hence this poll.

Thanks!
Obey

What do you mean by "wipe out someone's money"?.

And who takes the money after three years of inactivity? The government? So you leave money in a bank account for three years and then they can legally take it? I'm sure it can't be as simple as that.

[obeygiant]

I mean literally wiping it out -- grant it a value of 0.

Here's one about inactive accounts -- http://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/news/government-grab-for-inactive-bank-accounts ; there's a better one about that guy who worked his whole life, died, had millions, and their children took too long to reclaim his account so they lost it under the new 3-year australian rule.

Obey

[e521]

I mean literally wiping it out -- grant it a value of 0.

Here's one about inactive accounts -- http://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/news/government-grab-for-inactive-bank-accounts ; there's a better one about that guy who worked his whole life, died, had millions, and their children took too long to reclaim his account so they lost it under the new 3-year australian rule.

Obey

3 years is long enough for anybody to claim it I guess?
The problem is "your" father didn't let you know he stashed millions somewhere

[hilariousandco]

I mean literally wiping it out -- grant it a value of 0.

If it's lost then the value of it will essentially be zero.

[BurtW]

In how many years of account inactivity ("unspent transaction output," in the case of Bitcoin) do you think it is OK to wipe out someone's money?

In the case of Bitcoin this is a silly question because there is no way to "wipe out" someones unspent transaction output.

So the question is moot.

[obeygiant]

I mean literally wiping it out -- grant it a value of 0.

Here's one about inactive accounts -- http://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/news/government-grab-for-inactive-bank-accounts ; there's a better one about that guy who worked his whole life, died, had millions, and their children took too long to reclaim his account so they lost it under the new 3-year australian rule.

Obey

3 years is long enough for anybody to claim it I guess?
The problem is "your" father didn't let you know he stashed millions somewhere

Thanks!

I'm thinking about setting the inactive-coin detector to 819200 blocks (about ~15.5 years with 10 minutes per block). With my ~1.66% demurrage charge per month, that would leave only about 4% of the value left on the coin after ~15.5 years anyway, at which point it would then vanish. With about 8 years, the value left is around 20%.

And, in any case, you won't have to "spend" it in 15.5 years, you can send it to yourself to reset the 15-year clock...

Obey

[BurtW]

Are you creating another alt coin or trying to estimate the number of "dead" Bitcions for economic calculations?

[obeygiant]

Are you creating another alt coin or trying to estimate the number of "dead" Bitcions for economic calculations?

Altcoin.

[lepirate]

Nope, I think it's a bad idea to "wipe out" someones balance. If you've bought/mined your coins, well then those coins are yours and you should be free to do whatever you want to do with them.

[BurtW]

Are you creating another alt coin or trying to estimate the number of "dead" Bitcions for economic calculations?

Altcoin.

Is your new alt coin a brand new coin or a branch off the Bitcoin blockchain?

Got a name yet?

[obeygiant]

Are you creating another alt coin or trying to estimate the number of "dead" Bitcions for economic calculations?

Altcoin.

Is your new alt coin a brand new coin or a branch off the Bitcoin blockchain?

Got a name yet?

I named it "Scicoin" because I already had the domain for another idea (which I will retrofit into this one). http://www.scicoin.org ; I wanted to make a coin that you do something useful like e.g. SETI@Home or fold proteins or search for prime numbers and then you get coins. What I realized is that there's a way to do that with a higher layer on top of a pure proof-of-work coin... which is what Scicoin is now, just another Bitcoin with two twists.

The code is almost ready. I just have to figure out a way to add some backpointers in the code so that a CTxOut can find its block in the blockchain... which may not be trivial at all to do :-)

By the way, this is completely absolutely awesome and is related to what I'm doing: http://www.tomatleeblog.com/?p=175326906

Obey

[Welsh]

Until no one uses it? But, I still disagree you shouldn't wipe anyone balance.

[BurtW]

Until no one uses it? But, I still disagree you shouldn't wipe anyone balance.

I disagree.  He should create his alt any way he wants to, explain to everyone that if they do not periodically move their coins they will lose them, and then let the market decide.

This alt will make a fine addition to the steaming pile of alts already on the market.

[obeygiant]

Until no one uses it? But, I still disagree you shouldn't wipe anyone balance.

I disagree.  He should create his alt any way he wants to, explain to everyone that if the do not periodically move their coins they will lose them, and then let the market decide.

I hope The Market(TM) rejects it, otherwise I've done something wrong.

--Obey

[BurtW]

I hope The Market(TM) rejects it, otherwise I've done something wrong.

--Obey

I believe you are on the right track.

[obeygiant]

I hope The Market(TM) rejects it, otherwise I've done something wrong.

--Obey

I believe you are on the right track.

Me too.

Obey