Advancing Bitcoin Mission's (theoretical perspective).

[Wiwo]

Bitcoin with a circulating supply of 21 million Bitcoin, with a highly decentralized network that has high privacy that made it impossible for third-party involvement, this made it hard for lost coins to be used in the future according to so many Bitcoin supporters they consider lost Bitcoin as a donation to the rest of other holders. because of market value but in the real sense, those Bitcoin become unused and lost forever. If this continues Bitcoin will soon become out of reach to the unbanked who are part of the satoshi's original idea included in the Bitcoin whitepaper. we have billions bits in Bitcoin but how many bits are active or inactive this need, brought me to this conclusion that lost Bitcoin shouldn't be lost forever but rather reused since Bitcoin limited 21 million circulating supply Bitcoin is not enough and have become scarce resources/currency that is reflected in the current price. I like to see the opinion other forum members on this thought.

[mocacinno]

Bitcoin with a circulating supply of 21 million Bitcoin, with a highly decentralized network that has high privacy that made it impossible for third-party involvement, this made it hard for lost coins to be used in the future according to so many Bitcoin supporters they consider lost Bitcoin as a donation to the rest of other holders because of market value but in the real sense, those Bitcoin become unused and lost forever. If this continues Bitcoin will soon become out of reach to the unbanked who are part of the satoshi's original idea included in the Bitcoin whitepaper, we have billions bits in Bitcoin but how many bits are active or inactive this need, brought me to this conclusion that lost Bitcoin shouldn't be lost forever but rather reused since Bitcoin limited 21 million circulating supply Bitcoin is not enough and have become scarce resources/currency that is reflected in the current price. I like to see the opinion other forum members on this thought.

You really need to put some periods in between your sentences. I had to re-read this block many times before i got the actual question.

Personally, i'm very hard against what you're proposing (recycling unspent outputs that have not been used for a long time...) for multiple reasons:

• Who is going to tell us if that unspent output is really "lost" or is merely controlled by a real hodler? I have unspent outputs that are several years old, will you be robbing me by voiding those unspent outputs? I can tell you, with great certainty, that i would swap chains and move every single satoshi i own to an altcoin that wasn't thinking about these shenanigans if there was ever a real discussion about voiding old transactions and said discussion would ever start translating in actual BIP's (and it was plausible they would be implemented)
• On a technical level, how would you solve "voiding" old unspent outputs? You *could* add them to the block reward of the next block, but that would mean a miner would not only be able to add the block reward and the sum of the fees to the coinbase transaction, but also a value of unspent outputs that were generated by a transaction that was included in a block with a height (current height - x?). Seems pretty arbitrary to me...

In reality, bitcoin will never be out of reach for the common man (or it doesn't HAVE to be out of reach)... Even if ALL private keys get lost except just one private key whose address was funded with just one bitcoin, it could still be enough for everybody... At the moment, bitcoin's smallest on chain denomination is 0.0000001 BTC (one satoshi), but (for example) the LN uses millisat as it's smallest denomination. If there was only 1 bitcoin left, we could all start using nanoSat as smallest denomination... or picoSat of femtoSat, or...

[hatshepsut93]

Satoshi never said anything about the unbanked. Also, "the unbanked" is a marketing term created by new online banks, so that they could tell investors how they will attract millions of users. The whole point of the term "ubanked" is to make them "banked", not "bitcoined".

Bitcoin is not running out of units of account, the network would need to lose 99.9999999% of its total supply before it would start becoming a problem, and current estimate for lost coins is something like 5-20%, and the rate at which coins are getting lost has greatly slowed down

[Oshosondy]

Bitcoin with a circulating supply of 21 million Bitcoin, with a highly decentralized network that has high privacy that made it impossible for third-party involvement, this made it hard for lost coins to be used in the future according to so many Bitcoin supporters they consider lost Bitcoin as a donation to the rest of other holders because of market value but in the real sense, those Bitcoin become unused and lost forever. If this continues Bitcoin will soon become out of reach to the unbanked who are part of the satoshi's original idea included in the Bitcoin whitepaper, we have billions bits in Bitcoin but how many bits are active or inactive this need, brought me to this conclusion that lost Bitcoin shouldn't be lost forever but rather reused since Bitcoin limited 21 million circulating supply Bitcoin is not enough and have become scarce resources/currency that is reflected in the current price. I like to see the opinion other forum members on this thought.

Bitcoin is decentralized and can be traded even on decentralized exchanges but people are ignorant in a way they are now using centralized exchanges, the centralized exchanges facing pressure from regulation organizations and most of them are now demanding their users to provide identity documents and other things in a way privacy will not continue to exist.

But what  are trying to say is that you have your bitcoin and its privacy, which means you have the sole responsibility to protect it.

Bitcoin can not become out of reach, its price will only increase. The more bitcoin is becoming valuable, the more people will be careful not to lose it.

Most lost bitcoin in the past is because people did not believe bitcoin would become more valuable and unbelievable to them, it even become more valuable than they thought, but they are already careless with the private key of their bitcoin which is lost forever.

[Lucius]

~snip~
we have billions bits in Bitcoin but how many bits are active or inactive this need, brought me to this conclusion that lost Bitcoin shouldn't be lost forever but rather reused since Bitcoin limited 21 million circulating supply Bitcoin is not enough and have become scarce resources/currency that is reflected in the current price. I like to see the opinion other forum members on this thought.

A senior member who has not yet moved away from the beginner's questions and thinks that there is not enough Bitcoin in the world for all those who want it, or that there will not be enough in the future... What is completely neglected is the fact that Bitcoin is used in one way or another by a maximum of about 5% of the world's population, and it is questionable whether this number will double by the end of the decade.

What is lost can only contribute to a higher price of Bitcoin in the future, but one day when computers are far more powerful some of the lost coins will probably be saved - it will be a challenge for some future digital treasure hunters.

[Wiwo]

What is lost can only contribute to a higher price of Bitcoin in the future, but one day when computers are far more powerful some of the lost coins will probably be saved - it will be a challenge for some future digital treasure hunters.

Thank you this paragraph aligned to my school of thought, being futuristic about the possible challenge that await future computer/developers that may work to contribute to the Bitcoin network. But because of the high privacy and security in the Bitcoin network it almost impossible for that to happen and that is why most of us Bitcoin supporters ride with the idea of lost Bitcoin as a contribution to the price.

Most lost bitcoin in the past is because people did not believe bitcoin would become more valuable and unbelievable to them, it even become more valuable than they thought, but they are already careless with the private key of their bitcoin which is lost forever.

Yeah the number of lost Bitcoin is on the decline recently because people are getting more aware and informed about Bitcoin, and how to protect their private keys, But still from 2017 report lost Bitcoin is placed at 20% of the total circulating supply.

You really need to put some periods in between your sentences. I had to re-read this block many times before i got the actual question.

Personally, i'm very hard against what you're proposing (recycling unspent outputs that have not been used for a long time...) for multiple reasons:

Thanks for the correction, and also for your in-depth contributions. Your analysis broadened my understanding and opened up a room for more research, I was just having the general thought on the subject matter and I thought I could share it here for members' contributions.

[tranthidung]

If this continues Bitcoin will soon become out of reach to the unbanked who are part of the satoshi's original idea included in the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Why will it become unreachable to the unbanked?

They can join anytime they want. They don't have to buy a whole Bitcoin, 0.1 BTC or 0.01 BTC. They can buy smaller amount of Bitcoin if they want to. The second layer, Lightning network is helpful for smaller exchanges too.

we have billions bits in Bitcoin but how many bits are active or inactive this need, brought me to this conclusion that lost Bitcoin shouldn't be lost forever but rather reused since Bitcoin limited 21 million circulating supply Bitcoin is not enough and have become scarce resources/currency that is reflected in the current price. I like to see the opinion other forum members on this thought.

Reuse is an incorrect term. When you send your Bitcoin to a receiver, you lost it, forever. If you send it to a wrong receiving address, you lost it too. You can not summon it and reuse it!

There is change addresses and there is circulating transactions of Bitcoin on the network but it is not reuse by one person. It's exchange between sender and receiver.

You can use the HODL waves and make your estimation on possible lost Bitcoin. Estimation will be different when you use different cut-off of UTXo ages. Old inactive UTXO does not mean it is lost forever.

• https://www.lookintobitcoin.com/charts/hodl-waves/

[ImThour]

Bitcoin is digital gold.
Bitcoin is more than a payment method/network.

I don't think there will be a lack of Bitcoin in mass audiences anytime soon. You will never have enough money to buy all the Bitcoin in the world.
More demand, less supply = High Price

One single organization will not be able to cope with the lesser supply and higher demand making the price reach above $1 Million, I guess?

[Doan9269]

lost Bitcoin as a donation to the rest of other holders

This is somewhat ridiculous enough to believed on in the sense that if this should be true then many will tind it difficult to have their privacy using bitcoin or think otherwise that bitcoin only is in favour of those that are the whales who have larger portion of bitcoins in possession, moreover how can they even got to know that a bitcoin is lost or is hodl on the blockchain, just as one can easily be responsible for any lost in his fiat currency due to his negligence same will any coin vanish within the thin air if lost, it should remain an unconfirmed transaction on the blockchain i think.