Bitcoins destroyed if unused, to keep bitcoin supply known?

[jongameson]

please don't destroy my family's future

[Littleshop]

please don't destroy my family's future

Exactly.

Nothing is gained by this except maybe 'knowing' how many Bitcoins are still usable. 

I say a little mystery makes Bitcoin more exciting. 

[5od0miz3r]

It's a great idea, we should also break into people's houses and banks and burn any money / throw away gold, paintings, heirlooms, etc that they haven't used for awhile.

+1

In my country what they say are no use u lose

[Tisko]

Extra amusing how all these people fall for the hard troll OP, while accusing HIM to have been very stupid... :-D

[bitopia]

People are regularly forced to convert paper money to new notes or lose the value. It is the exact same principle.

Most countries also have principles to apply to abandon properties and accumulated wealth with no inheritor that in the end returns it to the state.

Are these also unfair practices?

[bitopia]

This issue has probably been discussed before ...

Yes.  Many, many, many, many, times.
...

Once coin blacklisting and address-2-identity correlation systems are ready to go I'd expect the issue to be re-visited.

I'll wager that a lot of people who were against the idea (forced spending) will suddenly realize that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Particularly those with ties to the Bitcoin Foundation.

Thanks for a sensible reply.

Since the issue as mentioned has been discussed several times before it's probably better to end it here and revisit in a few years.

[cr1776]

People are regularly forced to convert paper money to new notes or lose the value. It is the exact same principle.

Most countries also have principles to apply to abandon properties and accumulated wealth with no inheritor that in the end returns it to the state.

Are these also unfair practices?

If you like state-issued fiat money with state rules, stick with that. Why try to recreate a failed system?

As has been stated numerous times, this is a hard fork - so go ahead, make the changes you propose, release them, fork the blockchain, and see how many people follow you to your new alt-coin.

Many people are hoping someone someone actually follows through and does it instead of talking about it and doing nothing while expecting someone else to do the work for them.  The code is on github. If everyone follows you'll be a hero.

[tvbcof]

...
As has been stated numerous times, this is a hard fork - so go ahead, make the changes you propose, release them, fork the blockchain, and see how many people follow you to your new alt-coin.
...

Not necessarily.  Forced activity could easily be implemented using coin blacklisting.  A blacklisting and registry authority could be completely stand-alone.  Such efforts could benefit by cooperation from the Bitcoin development team, but it is not really necessary.

[BurtW]

...
As has been stated numerous times, this is a hard fork - so go ahead, make the changes you propose, release them, fork the blockchain, and see how many people follow you to your new alt-coin.
...

Not necessarily.  Forced activity could easily be implemented using coin blacklisting.  A blacklisting and registry authority could be completely stand-alone.  Such efforts could benefit by cooperation from the Bitcoin development team, but it is not really necessary.

What would you call a situation where part of the network (miners and clients) do not subscribe to the black lists and the other part of the network (miners and clients) do subscribe to the black lists?

The part that is ignoring the black lists will allow the black listed coins to be moved to new addresses.  These transactions will be put into blocks by the miners that are ignoring the black lists.

The blocks containing these black listed transactions will not be accepted by the part of the network that is a slave to the black list.  They will create their own chain of blocks without the blocks containing the black listed transactions.

How can you say this is not a hard fork?  It is the definition of a hard fork.

[cr1776]

Sounds like Japan today:

Japan plans to raid dormant bank accounts to raise new revenue
Government resurrects proposal to help pay for welfare and education projects as the indebted country struggles to find new revenue

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1410614/japan-plans-raid-dormant-bank-accounts-raise-new-revenue

[retrend]

What a ridiculous idea.  

[umaOuma]

Most countries also have principles to apply to abandon properties and accumulated wealth with no inheritor that in the end returns it to the state.

Are these also unfair practices?

Yes, very unfair. Unless there is not any heir anymore

[BitchicksHusband]

Why would someone want to duplicate the horror of escheatment on purpose?

[tvbcof]

...
How can you say this is not a hard fork?  It is the definition of a hard fork.

A 'hard fork' implies a functional event in the Bitcoin network having to do with block linkage.  You are getting tunnel vision.  I'm saying that exercising control over Bitcoin (including forced spending) is better done in a different way.

When BTC is used by a certain percentage of the public and corporate entities accept BTC the 'solution' becomes simple"

 - Some 'terrorist' uses Bitcoin for something bad.

 - The government tells corporate entities to check against a blacklist (maintained by Mellon's company) before accepting payments.  (You can ask Yahoo!'s CEO what kind of pressure can be brought to bare to make national security things happen BTW.)

I personally am as political as they come, but I'm not going to accept BTC which are on Mellon's list because I don't know if I can get rid of them without a loss.  I don't mind taking a loss on principle, but I want to know what the loss is going to be.  My point is that independently maintained blacklists will be very effective for reasons that have to do with generic economic principles.

Now that blacklists are implanted, it's just a matter of ratcheting up the things that trigger taint.

 - Starts with 'terrorism' and 'child exploitation.'  ('terrorism' includes Wikileaks of course.)

 - Next it's violent crime and drugs.

 - Next it's fraud.

 - etc.  I mean, who's going to stand up and say that fraud is OK?  It's a progressive 'frog in the pot' type operation.

Of course some people slip through the cracks, and that problem can be mitigated by using the sister 'identification authority' so blacklist any coins the don't have a known owner.

Now we get to the OP.  For legacy reason, older BTC stashes are not associated with an individual owner.  Solution is trivial:  Force a spend and blacklist BTC which don't move.

[dissident]

yeah, not the smartest idea here... it would be like breaking into a safe deposit box and stealing the contents if the owner hasn't signed in to check on them in a year.   As much as I get annoyed at the fact that 66% of bitcoins are held by 2% of the users, stealing the bitcoins from them would hurt crypto currencies as a whole... the solution will come from new currencies that are distributed more fairly with new technologies that I believe will eventually replace bitcoin or at least supplement bitcoin.

[naurisdede]

What a ridiculous idea.  

+1

[BurtW]

...
How can you say this is not a hard fork?  It is the definition of a hard fork.

A 'hard fork' implies a functional event in the Bitcoin network having to do with block linkage.  You are getting tunnel vision.  I'm saying that exercising control over Bitcoin (including forced spending) is better done in a different way.

When BTC is used by a certain percentage of the public and corporate entities accept BTC the 'solution' becomes simple"

 - Some 'terrorist' uses Bitcoin for something bad.

 - The government tells corporate entities to check against a blacklist (maintained by Mellon's company) before accepting payments.  (You can ask Yahoo!'s CEO what kind of pressure can be brought to bare to make national security things happen BTW.)

I personally am as political as they come, but I'm not going to accept BTC which are on Mellon's list because I don't know if I can get rid of them without a loss.  I don't mind taking a loss on principle, but I want to know what the loss is going to be.  My point is that independently maintained blacklists will be very effective for reasons that have to do with generic economic principles.

Now that blacklists are implanted, it's just a matter of ratcheting up the things that trigger taint.

 - Starts with 'terrorism' and 'child exploitation.'  ('terrorism' includes Wikileaks of course.)

 - Next it's violent crime and drugs.

 - Next it's fraud.

 - etc.  I mean, who's going to stand up and say that fraud is OK?  It's a progressive 'frog in the pot' type operation.

Of course some people slip through the cracks, and that problem can be mitigated by using the sister 'identification authority' so blacklist any coins the don't have a known owner.

Now we get to the OP.  For legacy reason, older BTC stashes are not associated with an individual owner.  Solution is trivial:  Force a spend and blacklist BTC which don't move.

I agree that fungibility is a huge issue (see my signature).  We must fight against anything that threatens the fungibility of Bitcoin otherwise Bitcoin will fail and another coin with built in mixing to taint all coins and make it impossible to even think about doing coin lists will prevail.

So I am going to suggest my own change/fork to Bitcoin:  automatic mixing of all coins in every block by protocol design change.  Then lists will not happen because lists will not work.

[mgio]

It's a very bad idea, but the problem of unused/lost coins IS a big problem. This just isn't a valid solution.


As someone said before, the price is a function of supply and demand. If the supply is unknown, price will be unknown and potentially volatile.

And as time goes on, more and more coins will be in that "unknown" state where we don't know if they are lost or just beings saved.

The more coins that are like that, the more uncertain what the real supply of bitcoin is.

And remember, eventually ALL bitcoins will be lost!

[2tights]

It's part of the design. This is stupid how everyone gives this discussion legitimacy when it's a total waste of space.

[tvbcof]

...
So I am going to suggest my own change/fork to Bitcoin:  automatic mixing of all coins in every block by protocol design change.  Then lists will not happen because lists will not work.

It's a good idea.  Our only hope, really, IMHO.  It would have to happen fairly soon though since the nature of the userbase is changing, and that rate of change could jump sharply.

For a variety of reasons, I'm actually not especially hopeful that this will happen, or happen quickly enough.  I'd planned to convert about half of my stash to some other asset at this juncture (based on my own profit level more than date) but the timings of my sales are associated with my level of pessimism regarding the evolutionary trajectory of Bitcoin.

The activities and methods of the Bitcoin Foundation have contributed significantly to my pessimism.