This is where again the nature of Bitcoin being open source comes into play. Everyone can contribute and for a contribution to reach consensus among stakeholders, the incentives would only have to be strong enough. I am all with @stompix here because "not your keys not your crypto" should never equate to "yours keys, your crypto for only until X". As if you were renting a temporary box on the blockchain to store your wealth,
The system already includes this equation.
User ownership is relative; its duration is indefinite.
It is fundamental to clarify the definition of ownership.
There is a difference between relative ownership and absolute ownership.
The Bitcoin system is the absolute owner of its monetary energy.
There is a distinction between indefinite and infinite.
The blockchain is the temporal dimension of the Bitcoin system.
User ownership of wallets is temporary by the definition of relative ownership.
While it may seem otherwise, this equation is already present in the current system. You hold your crypto as your capability or decision to keep it perpetuates. Both of these are relative, by definition of human nature, and, by definition of relativity, subject to conditions.
We can state: a Bitcoin user holds crypto for only X, where X is indefinite. Being indefinite, X could also perpetuate infinitely. While X can be potentially infinite, it still regards a temporal limitation, X itself.
The main misunderstanding that appears to drive the conversation is upon the meaning of ownership, specifically, user ownership.
Ownership is the capacity to exercise control over something. In the Bitcoin system, user ownership is relative, as it is subject to conditions, time, and system ownership.
Users cannot bring monetary energy outside of the system. This is because of Bitcoin’s fixed supply, which is enforced by the blockchain. The blockchain’s purpose is to ensure that all valid transactions happen within the Bitcoin system and that the law of conservation of energy is respected. Users cannot transact coins outside of the system. All valid transactions must happen within the blockchain.
The blockchain prevents monetary energy to escape or join the system. It prevents users to transact coins outside of it and prevents double spending, thus any introduction of monetary energy without proof of work and beyond the fixed supply. What is of the Bitcoin system remains in it. What is not of the Bitcoin system does not remain.
Users are just using the monetary energy in this system. The enforcement of the constant and original supply and the law of conservation of energy makes Bitcoin a closed system. Since the Bitcoin system enforces ultimate control, it represents the absolute owner of its coins. In this sense, the monetary energy is centralized within the system. If the system is a neutral entity, we can define the system as decentralized. In other words, the system is the central authority, but it becomes decentralized as this authority is neutral towards all system participants and system rules. More specifically, the central authority is the machine, the tribunal, and even more specifically, it is the code itself, the constitution; however, if the code is not perfectly neutral, the system is not fully decentralized because it is not perfectly balanced. Much like artificial intelligence cannot be neutral until the training database is absolute and all-comprehensive. The code must respond to the law of conservation of energy and all other laws that consent perfect equilibrium and neutrality.
An absolute owner has ultimate, unconditioned, and limitless control over something.
Users are users, and their ownership is relative. They join the Bitcoin system and have freedom over its monetary energy, provided that this freedom is perpetually within the limits of the closed system. If users try to enforce relative ownership outside the Bitcoin system, the blockchain prevents it by exercising system ownership.
Relative ownership is limited control over something. User ownership in the Bitcoin system seems among the best forms of relative ownership, as it can perpetuate infinitely and gives the most transactional freedom. Such is thanks to the blockchain being unlimited in the number of blocks, thus infinitely explorable. Yet, monetary energy is still circumscribed within the blockchain and can only circulate inside it. We can visualize this considering the difference between indefinite and infinite, which we can call relative infinity (delimited) and absolute infinity (endless).
Even if it may seem that Bitcoin users are ultimate owners of some quantity of monetary energy, they are just relative owners. They are, in fact, users. They agree to use a system and its features but are not absolute owners. It means they are owners of a quantity of bitcoin for only X, where X is indefinite.
The possibility to hold monetary energy indefinitely does not make a user the absolute owner. Such an owner has independent and unconditioned control. The user ownership is dependent and conditioned on many factors, one of these being the possibility of losing access to the wallet; most importantly, dependent on the fact that if users want to use Bitcoin, they must do it within its closed system. The Bitcoin system does not allow monetary energy to escape the system because of the law of conservation of energy, which the constant supply pursues, while the blockchain enforces.
There is only one absolute owner in the Bitcoin system: the system itself. The system is the blockchain. The blockchain is the ultimate owner of monetary energy in the system. In other words, a user can hold bitcoins indefinitely, but the ultimate destiny of his coins is inside the blockchain. This destiny is the limit of this relative infinity that is the blockchain. Such is why user ownership is relative and temporary, and system ownership is absolute.
There is a substantial difference between being able to explore time indefinitely and existing outside of time, therefore being absolute. Coins can explore the temporal dimension of the Bitcoin system indefinitely, as the blockchain length is unlimited, but do not escape it. The temporal dimension of the Bitcoin system is the blockchain.
There is a similarity between the blockchain and time. In this sense, the Bitcoin system is a closed system similar to and within the original one, the Universe, and thus subject to its laws. It is fundamental that Bitcoin respects the universal laws that define the behaviors of energy in balanced systems, especially material energy, to which money is similar.
We can refer to the blockchain as an unlimited ledger of transactions/movements of monetary energy, of which sum is constant. We can also define the blockchain as a relative infinity system, that is, a system that is infinitely extendable but provided with a boundary. There is so the possibility to store infinite transactions within the blockchain [as long as there is effort (computational power)], which makes it unlimited inwardly; the boundary is the fixed supply of monetary energy, or constant sum, which entails that none can escape nor enter the system.
In this sense, the Bitcoin system already provides your equation by definition of relative ownership. By the same definition, it is also possible to address the phrase: “renting a temporary box on the blockchain to store your wealth”. The ownership of a wallet is relative because it is still subject to conditions and time. The wallet itself is not temporary, but the ownership of the user upon this wallet is. A user is therefore renting, or more suitably saying, owning a wallet indefinitely by definition of relative ownership, that is, until conditions like losing access to it or giving it up.
All valid bitcoin transactions are stored in the blockchain. Transactions outside of the blockchain are to be considered invalid. On-chain transactions are valid because the blockchain is responsible for the constant supply of monetary energy. The blockchain verifies and preserves the law of conservation of energy. The blockchain is the absolute owner of bitcoin energy.
Legend of parallelisms:
Coins = monetary energy, matter; transactions = movements; blocks = points in time; blockchain = time; wallets = points in space; set of possible wallets = space? ( finite number - maximum extent);
active wallets = bodies (points in space containing matter); set of active wallets = population;
As general definitions, we can state:
In the material system, an observer takes relative possession of a point in space and a quantity of matter to perform movements at points in time.
In the bitcoin system, a user takes relative possession of a wallet and a quantity of bitcoin to perform transactions at blocks in the blockchain.
This design seems in harmony with the universal laws on closed systems, except for one thing: the recycling of energy to preserve system balance. The Bitcoin system appears to require a form of recycling for inaccessible/lost monetary energy. There is a disorder regarding active wallets, which should represent wallets containing energy and in use (control) by relative owners. Currently, the network considers inaccessible and lost wallets permanently active (under the ownership of previous users) even though coins can never return to the system. Such a body of monetary energy would be without a user in control and have no chance of being recycled.
but this would fundamentally violate the third component of the
bundle of rights broadly defining what property rights are about:
1. the right to use the good
2. the right to earn income from the good
3. the right to transfer the good to others, alter it, abandon it, or destroy it (the right to ownership cessation)
The monetary energy of the Bitcoin system is subdivided into neutral fungible units. Human-based rights are irrelevant before the universal laws of perfectly balanced closed systems. This right, whereas it involves “destroying permanently”, refers to forms of energy. This right does not refer to energy itself, which is neutral and can’t be destroyed, just transformed. Coins in the Bitcoin system represent neutral monetary energy.
Ownership cessation doesn’t necessarily refer to destroying coins permanently; rather permanently losing access and control. Abandoning and destroying would take on the same meaning.
While one can still “destroy" the monetary energy under his relative ownership, which in Bitcoin would mean losing coins, the system should not sacrifice neutral energy for human rights if these can’t be defined properly, completely, and without partiality and bias. If we could establish unbiased human rights, they would likely include the right to an economy based on a neutral and balanced monetary system. This right would be more important than any right based on an unreasonable attachment to money.
That is just against THE core principle Bitcoin is based on. Bitcoin is about the inviolable right of permanent ownership. If Bitcoin comes to a point where its economic viability is at risk, people would follow their preferences, maximizing their utility. This means if Bitcoin is "bad" or becoming "bad" because it is a system where energy is permanently lost [is] and therefore destined to collapse, people will just withdraw their money from it. It is their free will to either stay in or leave the system.
Bitcoin is indeed about the inviolable right of permanent ownership, but by the system, and the constant supply of monetary energy represents this permanent ownership. The core of Bitcoin involves a closed system where the first law of thermodynamics is pursued and perfectly respected. Moreover, if such an inviolable right of permanent ownership would regard user ownership, a user should be unable to perform ownership cessation.
Permanent user ownership is impossible by the previously stated definition of relative ownership. It is essential to recognize that permanent loss of access or control to monetary energy means loss of ownership. To consider oneself still the owner of a quantity that has been permanently lost, and so, upon which the user has no control anymore, is a sign of biased perspectives.
In addition, we should not consider people leaving Bitcoin as a solution, especially if we are so passionately mentioning Bitcoin's core principles. We agree that Bitcoin is more secure as more people join the network. Furthermore, we can also agree, that we should first try to solve and clarify any possible issue in Bitcoin to the best of our abilities instead of considering ways to escape as soon as the situation becomes uncomfortable. Satoshi started the fire of the idea; our purpose as a network is to make it live and possibly refine it. We should not expect Satoshi to be a supreme being that has given us something perfect and irrefutable.
It seems your theory is based on the presupposition that there is only one cryptocurrency or only one way to store wealth in general.
The purpose of Bitcoin is to be the global reserve currency and the most representative store of wealth. Bitcoin is a currency and commodity. It is idealized as an underlying representative of value and a primary medium for monetary transactions. As for now, other cryptocurrencies are securities.
More specifically, bitcoin should represent absolute wealth preservation, given that its monetary energy never decays in absolute value ( 1 BTC = 1/21M of total energy, always). This would make bitcoin the general store of wealth and the primary digital commodity.
I am just wondering whether your idea of "permanently lost energy" is technically correct. It might be philosophically correct, but the energy consumed to have mined now dormant coins is still contained by the network. If it leads to increased scarcity, the energy consumed to have mined now dormant coins leads to potentially higher prices, potentially higher competition for transaction costs (if there is no block reward anymore), leads to more energy required to mine transaction cost rewards for a lower number of coins remaining in circulation. Hence, the energy consumed to have mined now dormant coins has a direct influence on the energy required to mine for transaction cost rewards.
Your observation is correct. It seems that the energy consumed for lost coins would return into the system per indirect means, as it would be transformed as an appreciation of the circulating bitcoins. It is unclear whether the conservation per indirect means is valid when focusing on monetary equilibrium. Intuitively, we should exclude the indirect here and focus on respecting the law directly.
Regarding permanently lost energy, please note that this refers to the monetary energy in the system. Thus we are referring to lost coins. This idea considers the similarity between money and energy. Such is the underlying similarity upon which the whole recycling idea stands. It also considers the universality of the law of conservation of energy. This law states that no energy is lost in a closed system that is perfectly balanced and self-sustainable. A permanent loss of coins in Bitcoin would make the system vulnerable to imbalance and eventually collapse. In a system with constant supply, imbalances would be any appreciation of coins due to factors outside of population change (because, in supply/demand, the supply is constant; with Bitcoin as the global reserve currency, price changes should only be due to population change). It is also obvious that if coins can be lost permanently, supply is not constant but decreasing over time. It is not primarily necessary to know how this system will collapse: we must first recognize that the system is not satisfying the law.
Scarcity in its broadest sense has a value, and hence, an energy preserving function. If another network incorporates your 131 years activity verification requirement and people deem that a better solution for their needs, they will remove their wealth from the Bitcoin network and shift it into the network they deem to be the right one based on their preferences , usually following utility maximization.
The beauty about Bitcoin's protocol has always been its open source nature. People are free to tweak the code and propose it to the public. We have true competition between cryptocurrencies, other currencies and conventional options to store wealth, but we have also competition among cryptocurrencies.
In terms of Bitcoin I am 100% with @stompix as there is no other cryptocurrency, or any other form for wealth preservation and protection, as Bitcoin. Bitcoin is as valuable as it is today because the rule
"3. the right to transfer the good to others, alter it, abandon it, or destroy it (the right to ownership cessation)"
has never been put seriously into question let alone ever been effectively violated. If you own they keys, and you are the sole owner of the keys and have sole authority over them, it is your crypto. The moment this rule would be altered through a hard fork, you would realize that the fork without your proposed rule won't drop in value while the fork with your idea would come out as much less valuable at best.
There appear to be some inconsistencies in your argument. If Bitcoin is about the permanent ownership of the user, how can it also give the right to cease ownership? It is crucial to clarify that ownership is the capacity to have potency and control over something. As one loses this capacity, like when losing access irreversibly, ownership is also lost. Furthermore, we should also clarify and remind that user ownership is and always will be relative.
I want to clearly say that I like this type of discussion. I know these questions have been brought up, but sometimes discussions still take different angles from the ones before. I think these discussions are one reason why we are all here.
The opportunity to have a say about the functioning of Bitcoin and propose new ideas comes from the open-source nature, as you have said. It is good to discuss Bitcoin in a way that respects ideas and people. The consensus of the majority is there to help biased beings reach the least amount of bias possible. This is another great part of Satoshi's idea.
Collectivity is the closest thing to neutrality if the individuals are biased. Therefore, the collective consensus is the safest and rightest decision among non-neutral individuals. Such is because the larger the number of components in the collectivity, the more the subdivisions of this single entity/set, and the closer the result to the neutral mean, thus the point of balance.
It is unnecessary to attack people who express themselves. No threat, no reason to worry: let people share their ideas; the collectivity is there to reach a consensus. In this light, never shut the spark of an individual. People should express themselves, fuel their fire, and share it with others. No one has the right to suppress the fire of others with presumption and superiority. Furthermore, the beginner often sees things that a master in complexity has missed along the way and would never get unless he makes himself a beginner again; for example, the capacity to rely on pure intuition. We should embrace praising creativity and possibly assist people to higher levels of knowledge with fraternity and goodwill.
