Is the 21M BTC supply promise realistic?

[PopaulHith]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

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[casperBGD]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

i do not understand your question, it is not realistic, it is real and immutable fact, so yes that is the final number, which cannot be changed...
if all of us loose their access to respective wallets, there will be few BTC left, but supply will not grow, that is for sure

[LFC_Bitcoin]

One bitcoin is divisible by many decimal points so there will always be enough to go around. Most people in the world will never own a full bitcoin especially as time goes on & it gets more expensive.

The satoshi represents one hundred millionths of a bitcoin. Small denominations make bitcoin transactions easier to conduct and makes extremely fine transactions readable. The general unit structure of bitcoins has 1 bitcoin (BTC) equivalent to 1,000 millibitcoins (mBTC), 1,000,000 microbitcoins (μBTC), or 100,000,000 satoshis. While the exact figure is unknown, it is estimated that Satoshi Nakamoto may possess 1 million bitcoins, equivalent to 100,000,000,000,000 satoshis.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/satoshi.asp

[RapTarX]

It's true that everyday we are losing BTC from the circulation. But the ratio has decreased a lot I guess; back in the day, people wouldn't care much and left their BTC wallet without any safety. As a result, they lost the BTC but these days, it's not happening much because BTC has a lot of value and people do care. I guess this will increase much and at some point if BTC gets the acceptance as day to day currency, no one will ever lose.
To be vanished like "No BTC left", it will take a lot of times and I am damn pretty sure something else will take the place and BTC will not be anymore valuable.

Just would like to share Satoshi's great quotation on these, "Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more.  Think of it as a donation to everyone."

[DarkDays]

Are you trying to say would there ever come a point where everybody has lost all of their money, and so there will be no circulating Bitcoin left?

If that's the case, then I'd say technically yes, there likely will come a point where that will happen, but Bitcoin would probably need to exist for tens of thousands of years for that to occur.

Firstly, Bitcoin will still be inflated by newly minted bitcoins for around a century, after that there will still be fractions of bitcoins left, and the value would be so high that only tiny fractions of a BTC are traded in everyday circumstances.

In any case, even if 100% of the supply was minted and lost, a blockchain reorg could see some the most recent transactions reversed to spread more BTC.

[odolvlobo]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.
So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…
I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).
Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic?  

Forever is a very long time. No currency has ever lasted forever. If a 2100000000000000 supply of satoshis is not realistic, what do you think a better number might be?

[PopaulHith]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

i do not understand your question, it is not realistic, it is real and immutable fact, so yes that is the final number, which cannot be changed...
if all of us loose their access to respective wallets, there will be few BTC left, but supply will not grow, that is for sure

It's not immutable. Bitcoin is a technology under development.....

[mk4]

It's not immutable. Bitcoin is a technology under development.....

Alright. Technically it really isn't 100% impossible to change the supply limit, because it could be done through a hard fork(though it really wouldn't be BTC). But good luck trying to convince people to follow a chain with a higher total supply. Bitcoin being scarce and slowly dis-inflationary are very very important characteristics of bitcoin both as an investment and as a store-of-value.

[20kevin20]

Anyone who changes that supply limit number won't be changing Bitcoin but they will be making a fork and it will be some shitcoin. Bitcoin will not change the 21,000,000 supply. Shit man, blocksize brings enough of wars, imagine someone trying to change supply.

Didn't some forks like Bitcoin Diamond already do that? They're shitcoins (most are even scams), but they do exist. In fact, I believe one of the main reasons Bitcoin Diamond has been forked off the Bitcoin chain was because they considered it's harder for newcomers to accumulate an entire Bitcoin, hence the 10x increase in the supply.

[20kevin20]

~

I think you're mistaking 1 BTC for 1 satoshi. Do you also think $1 is $100 because the lowest denomination is 0.01? The fact that a Bitcoin can be split into 100 million different pieces doesn't make its supply endless.

[stompix]

1 gallon of gas will take you 30 miles
.00000001 gallons of gas, won't even start your car, it has no value

In Bitcoin ,
1 bitcoin can be used spent
.00000001 bitcoin can be spent

From a technical standpoint, .00000001 can do anything 1 bitcoin can do, you lose no ability to spend
Welcome to the virtual world , where the smaller has the exact same properties as the larger.
Which is why inflating to the right of the decimal offers endless supply while fooling many into thinking bitcoin supply is limited.  
 

.00000001 cand do the same thing as 10 x .0000001 can and nothing more.
You can buy 1 ton of gas with one BTC here, you can buy only 1 liter with 1 mbtc and you can only buy droplets with satoshis.
If one satoshi will ever buy you a tank of gas one BTC will buy you a hundred million of it.

There is no endless supply from a value point of view.
It would be like your gas tank is also never completely empty because at any time you still have one molecule in it so there will be no end to oil ever.
But just as 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001 is worthless so it is your molecule of gas.

The 10k price is really hurting you, isn't it Mr. Teddybear? Your attacks on bitcoin are getting really lame lately!

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

* Note : LN is moving to 12 places to the right of the decimal, inflating the bitcoin supply in their offchain network even more.

Anything below the 8 decimal places won't be "on-chain" it will stay on the channel as defined in dust_limit_satoshis.
until enough transactions are made to make it up to the 1 Satoshi value it would not be accepted on the main chain even thought lightning can support below main net dust limit.

[shield132]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

Nothing ever gets lost. People are even talking that quantum computers will hack bitcoin network and who cares about lost bitcoins, they should be easy to restore. I wouldn't say that it's something to laugh on because for example in past first hard drive had size of 3.75 megabyte while nowadays the max size went up to 16 terabyte. Can you see how dramatically it increased? So who knows how soon we will be able to crack some things in near future. Bitcoin won't remain the same, it will have a need of security development, adding of some new features and some modification in overall. Maybe we will get all lost bitcoins but who will own them?
Nothing is impossible, even reviving of lost bitcoins. It's just a matter of time.

[Mahanton]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

There would be no issues when it comes or on talks with the supply yet even mining the whole or entire supply would take hundred years before it would be completed.
Come to think or recognized to those coins which are forever lost? Think to those who held more than 1 BTC into their wallet.If we do talk about on 1BTC denomination then
it  wont really be enough to circulate on the entire popular incase if its been totally adopted but as mentioned above we can deal with fractionally and not necessarily
counting on whole bitcoin everytime.

[hatshepsut93]

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

And at some point the Sun will stop burning and maybe even explode, but for us, our children and thousand more generations it won't be a problem, it's just a trivia fact. It's much more likely that in thousands of years Bitcoin will stop existing than that all coins will be lost. And if supply will ever be a problem, it's possible to split coins further - create fractions of satoshis, so that there's enough units for every need. Lightning Network allows it even today.

[squatter]

Everyday people lose access to their wallets, send Bitcoins to wrong addresses. It results in Bitcoins being lost forever. In the meantime, there is no way to prevent it.

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

I know there are other implications/discussions about Bitcoin supply. But I’d like to limit this topic to this concern (Bitcoins lost).

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

I don't think your premise makes sense. Other Bitcoin users who haven't lost their bitcoins have a strong financial incentive against diluting the money supply. As a matter of fact, the supply cap is probably considered the most sacred of all Bitcoin consensus rules.

Now that bitcoins are so valuable, we can also assume they are being lost at a significantly lower rate than years ago. I don't expect every bitcoin to be lost; not even close. So, I doubt this scenario will ever come to pass.

[sunsilk]

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic? 

It's for real and it's even recorded and programmed to have that supply limit. Reaching that max limit will take around a century or more until there's no more bitcoins left to mine but it's all going to be in the circulation.

Miners will continue to mine for the same thing and that's for the confirmation of our transactions. I'm also confused what you're bringing up here or what bothers you about the supply limit.

[Google+]

Is  the 21M BTC supply promise realistic?  

It's for real and it's even recorded and programmed to have that supply limit. Reaching that max limit will take around a century or more until there's no more bitcoins left to mine but it's all going to be in the circulation.

Miners will continue to mine for the same thing and that's for the confirmation of our transactions. I'm also confused what you're bringing up here or what bothers you about the supply limit.

one day miners will be difficult to produce bitcoin because as I know when bitcoin is getting closer to supply then the level of difficulty to break blocks that can produce bitcoin will increase even the result of miners will be drastically reduced, so the supply limit of bitcoin will have an impact on price and life bitcoin in the future.

because when bitcoin becomes more difficult to obtain there are 2 choices, humans can still use bitcoin but with very high transaction costs or humans don't use it anymore because bitcoin prices are too high only that is likely to happen in the future when bitcoin has reached the maximum supply limit .

[turkandjaydee]

humans don't use it anymore because bitcoin prices are too high only that is likely to happen in the future when bitcoin has reached the maximum supply limit .

What do you mean with too high? Please provide a more detail explanation about this.

Because we are still able to scale down BTC until 0.00000001 BTC a.k.a 1 satoshi.

[Velkro]

So, let’s suppose that Bitcoin would exist forever. It means that at some point there won’t be any coin left in the network…

Already been thought through way way way before .
Bitcoin can be divided endlessly. I mean there is limitations currently, but it can be expanded to divide further and further if necessary.
So even if there will be only 1 bitcoin "not lost" it can supply whole world.