Recycle lost coins

[DrSammyD]

I was watching the Bitcoin show and Yifu Guo mentioned having a 3 year window for bitcoins to be immobile, and then they go back into the mining pool, so that they can be recovered. This seems like a good idea with one caveat. That makes it less desirable to hold onto as long term investments, e.g. bitbills. So I'm thinking about a way around that.

I'd suggest a 10-20 year window, because it's not all that crucial that they come back into circulation, it's only for a time when most bitcoins are completely lost that there are perhaps only 1 million in circulation because 20 million of them have been lost. So I think after that amount of time we should allow those coins to be mined again.

However, I think it's important to allow those who do have a legit claim on old "lost" coins, to be able to access coins if they have the key. So I suggest there be a pool of lost coins that all coins older than the window go into. Claiming coins will be given priority, so if you have a "lost" key, you get the coins from that pool. As other coins are lost that pool will be continually fed, and with a 10 year window it will be increasingly unlikely that that pool will be depleted. The pool will be continuously mined normally at some equilibrium rate with the Loss rate and the Reclaiming rate.

Let me know what you think.

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[SmokeAndMirrors]

I'm not entirely sure about this as a solution, but I agree that bitcoins will not last without some solution in place.

I hear a lot of talk about how bitcoins will be around for a long time, but with the amount of people using bitcoins and amount of theft that has already taken place, we've already mined and/or lost a considerable amount. Some claim this is not an issue due to the divisibility bitcoins provide, but eventually 0.0001 bitcoin *may* be worth $1. Does this mean that after 1 transaction you lose $50 because of the 0.005btc tx fee? Or are we going to have to continuously update the system as long as bitcoins are around?

In all honesty I think this should be the number one priority if people are actually serious about considering this a long-term investment. Otherwise, it does just really seem to be a great ponzi scheme.

[johnj]

How does one determine if coin in a wallet is 'lost' or simply 'saved'?

As for the transaction fees: They vary.  As more coins are mined, more coins are exchanged, more volume on the BTC network. (If everything goes 'as planned')

If BTC ever gets to .001 = $1 USD, there will be so much volume that the fees will go down.

At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

[payb.tc]

also, how would you prove you have a 'lost' key if you've lost it?

[DrSammyD]

If the coin hasn't been moved in 20 years, it's incredibly likely to have been 'lost' rather than saved. But again, in the very unlikely case that it's been 'saved', that's where the lost and found pool comes in. 'saved' keys can claim from the lost pool the amount of coins their entitled to.

If there aren't enough, then they'd have to wait until more coins enter that 'lost' pool.

The key wasn't lost, you've had it all along. But the system has assumed that you lost it since it hasn't moved in 20 years.

[maaku]

Demurrage would solve this...


Anyway, simply build into the client an automatic ‘transfer’ from one address to another in your wallet every year or so; the user need not even be notified. If an output goes stale for three years or more, that means the either the owner hasn't been seen in two years or the wallet is lost. The output is then up for grabs.

I'm implementing something similar to this in my demurrage-based test block chain. Demurrage fees are assessed as transaction fees when the coins are spent, but each time an output halves in value due to fees (takes about 20 years), those fees, rounded up, become up for grabs. Eventually lost coins are re-entered into circulation.

[cbeast]

I see no problem with "lost" coins. They make the original bitcoin scarcity increase. I see no problem with alternate block chains. If their experimental properties prove themselves to be useful, then we will have alternative currencies to chose from.Is there any technical reason that the original bitcoin algorithm could not one day be modified with these properties if they are found useful? If so, then they are relevant discussions.

[Explodicle]

What problem does this solve? If divisibility is a problem BUT we're willing to modify the protocol, then why not make them more divisible?

[payb.tc]

What problem does this solve? If divisibility is a problem BUT we're willing to modify the protocol, then why not make them more divisible?

it doesn't really solve any problem, actually.

the bitcoin economy will function exactly the same even if the entire world is only circulating 0.00001 btc total.

it would be no problem to create a client that sends/receives nano or pico coins, displays amounts and gets user inputs in nano or pico coins.

[DrSammyD]

It fits the model of gold better. Gold doesn't get lost with no chance of being found again.

Why did Satoshi cap gold at 21 million? Was it arbitrary?

Yes I know the argument, any amount of a money is sufficient.

One benefit is it will keep the bounty on mining high, making it so that people will continue to drive the difficulty level high, making the block chain more secure. It does that without inflating.

[ctoon6]

my idea of the next gen cryptocurrency is this

1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion/T)coins total, enough for each person in the world to be able to have 100-200 each
2 or 1 min blocks, about 3 or 4-8 years per 1M blocks
100,000 coins per block,(100 thousand/K) no declining reward
instead coins are almost equally divided out of the entire chain once there are no longer any coins to get for free. old small amounts of coins are just removed, like for instance, over time an amount of 10 coins has been abandoned, and is now worth less than 1 coin, this coin will get taken over priority than dividing the entire chain out. so any coins that fit this criteria will always be removed before any division is calculated, so you may not even loose any coins if things work out in a certain way.
this encourages coins to be SPENT AND NOT HOARDED. spend em or loose em, that's how it should be. if you want to save money, buy gold or a house or something, don't ruin a currency.
mandatory fees(.0001+0.01%), they reduce the amount of division needed to do on the entire chain.

these ideas would only work long term if there was very serious mining competition, otherwise miners make way too much money, and the idea is very rough, and has some holes in it, but i think it could work, although the calculations required for just 1 block, even after you hashed it all out would be fairly high. but i also think this helps fix the problem of an ever growing blockchain.

[casascius]

I am convinced that there is a probability that over the long term, in order to keep the block chain from being a mandatory zillion terabyte download, the block chain will be managed by signed checkpoints (call them "superblocks") that simply summarize all of the account balances beforehand so that clients don't have to download and maintain everything from the genesis block to the current just to sell sodapop and bubblegum.  If that ever comes to be, I could see a policy for "superblocks" of dumping old account balances of 0.01 or 0.001 or smaller, perhaps the threshold also takes the age into account, simply so that they don't consume more resources to track than they're worth.

As long as every user must download the whole block chain and dedicate disk space to keeping track of every time joe miner received a payout of 0.00125134 from a mining pool as it is now, it doesn't serve any useful purpose to void any small transactions.

[ctoon6]

I am convinced that there is a probability that over the long term, in order to keep the block chain from being a mandatory zillion terabyte download, the block chain will be managed by signed checkpoints (call them "superblocks") that simply summarize all of the account balances beforehand so that clients don't have to download and maintain everything from the genesis block to the current just to sell sodapop and bubblegum.  If that ever comes to be, I could see a policy for "superblocks" of dumping old account balances of 0.01 or 0.001 or smaller, perhaps the threshold also takes the age into account, simply so that they don't consume more resources to track than they're worth.

As long as every user must download the whole block chain and dedicate disk space to keeping track of every time joe miner received a payout of 0.00125134 from a mining pool as it is now, it doesn't serve any useful purpose to void any small transactions.

the main thing i am trying to "fix" is the extreme uneven distribution of currency. i think the coins should be moved around from person to person, or you pay for hoarding.

it also works out so that you can eventually get rid of some really old blocks and not even need a genesis block eventually, just some trusted block every few years or so included in your client. and because there are so many coins, you cant really justify keeping .0001 of a coin for more than a month, it simply is a burden on everyone else.

[payb.tc]

I am convinced that there is a probability that over the long term, in order to keep the block chain from being a mandatory zillion terabyte download, the block chain will be managed by signed checkpoints (call them "superblocks") that simply summarize all of the account balances beforehand so that clients don't have to download and maintain everything from the genesis block to the current just to sell sodapop and bubblegum.  If that ever comes to be, I could see a policy for "superblocks" of dumping old account balances of 0.01 or 0.001 or smaller, perhaps the threshold also takes the age into account, simply so that they don't consume more resources to track than they're worth.

As long as every user must download the whole block chain and dedicate disk space to keeping track of every time joe miner received a payout of 0.00125134 from a mining pool as it is now, it doesn't serve any useful purpose to void any small transactions.

the main thing i am trying to "fix" is the extreme uneven distribution of currency.

this would only ever be a temporary fix.

(i.e even if you 'fixed' this same problem in USD for example, 80% of the dosh would gravitate back to 20% of the people anyway)

[FreeMoney]

I am convinced that there is a probability that over the long term, in order to keep the block chain from being a mandatory zillion terabyte download, the block chain will be managed by signed checkpoints (call them "superblocks") that simply summarize all of the account balances beforehand so that clients don't have to download and maintain everything from the genesis block to the current just to sell sodapop and bubblegum.  If that ever comes to be, I could see a policy for "superblocks" of dumping old account balances of 0.01 or 0.001 or smaller, perhaps the threshold also takes the age into account, simply so that they don't consume more resources to track than they're worth.

As long as every user must download the whole block chain and dedicate disk space to keeping track of every time joe miner received a payout of 0.00125134 from a mining pool as it is now, it doesn't serve any useful purpose to void any small transactions.

the main thing i am trying to "fix" is the extreme uneven distribution of currency.

this would only ever be a temporary fix.

(i.e even if you 'fixed' this same problem in USD for example, 80% of the dosh would gravitate back to 20% of the people anyway)

Seriously, if you want to keep even distribution just spread it out evenly and stop having transactions at all.

[payb.tc]

I am convinced that there is a probability that over the long term, in order to keep the block chain from being a mandatory zillion terabyte download, the block chain will be managed by signed checkpoints (call them "superblocks") that simply summarize all of the account balances beforehand so that clients don't have to download and maintain everything from the genesis block to the current just to sell sodapop and bubblegum.  If that ever comes to be, I could see a policy for "superblocks" of dumping old account balances of 0.01 or 0.001 or smaller, perhaps the threshold also takes the age into account, simply so that they don't consume more resources to track than they're worth.

As long as every user must download the whole block chain and dedicate disk space to keeping track of every time joe miner received a payout of 0.00125134 from a mining pool as it is now, it doesn't serve any useful purpose to void any small transactions.

the main thing i am trying to "fix" is the extreme uneven distribution of currency.

this would only ever be a temporary fix.

(i.e even if you 'fixed' this same problem in USD for example, 80% of the dosh would gravitate back to 20% of the people anyway)

Seriously, if you want to keep even distribution just spread it out evenly and stop having transactions at all.

and redistribute every time someone new pops out or kicks the bucket

[turquoise9955]

Go green, recycle btc ;p

[maaku]

the main thing i am trying to "fix" is the extreme uneven distribution of currency. i think the coins should be moved around from person to person, or you pay for hoarding.

it also works out so that you can eventually get rid of some really old blocks and not even need a genesis block eventually, just some trusted block every few years or so included in your client. and because there are so many coins, you cant really justify keeping .0001 of a coin for more than a month, it simply is a burden on everyone else.

Demurrage solves that problem definitively. Do a search for ‘freicoin’ on this forum.

[im3w1l]

Some people say that it doesn't matter that coins get lost due to divisibility. But assume that an evil hoarder keeps his gold so long that all presume it to be lost. Said person could then, when showing everyone the true amount of availible bitcoins, cause a great the deal of instability.

[fornit]

right now, the possibility of lost coins leads to the risk of an incalculable profit for everybody owning bitcoins. the possibility of recycled coins on the other hand leads to the risk of an incalculable profit for everybody mining bitcoins.
so you basically want to put an awful lot of work into it and make the protocol more complex just for trading one problem that isnt really a problem for another not-really-a-problem.
thats so meaningless you could probably convince the european union to fund it