Possible solution for recovering lost Bitcoin to the "blackhole".

[kjj]

The only cryptographic algo that is provablely secure from brute force forever is the simple Vernon Cypher, which has no applications here.

Is that known by another name? Searching Google and Wikipedia for "vernon cypher" didn't return useful results.

It is a one time pad.  It requires one bit of key for each bit of message, and no key bits are related so all potential decodes are equally likely.  Just make sure that the key bits really are unrelated.  That is, you must a have a real source of randomness like a geiger counter, not just pseudorandomness, otherwise the PRNG seed is the real key.

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[westkybitcoins]

The only cryptographic algo that is provablely secure from brute force forever is the simple Vernon Cypher, which has no applications here.

Is that known by another name? Searching Google and Wikipedia for "vernon cypher" didn't return useful results.

It is a one time pad.  It requires one bit of key for each bit of message, and no key bits are related so all potential decodes are equally likely.  Just make sure that the key bits really are unrelated.  That is, you must a have a real source of randomness like a geiger counter, not just pseudorandomness, otherwise the PRNG seed is the real key.

Thanks. I have heard of the one-time pad, and understand why it's uncrackable (and why it's rarely used.)

Didn't remember the name of the man (Vernam, thanks Epoch) who co-developed it.

[malevolent]

Is the system designed so that the total amount of BTC in circulation does not exceed 21m or it will always be below that figure?
From what I've read 21m is an asymptote meaning total BTC will always be nearing this number but never reaching.

[SgtSpike]

Is the system designed so that the total amount of BTC in circulation does not exceed 21m or it will always be below that figure?
From what I've read 21m is an asymptote meaning total BTC will always be nearing this number but never reaching.

I must admit I do not know if it will be 21M on the dot, or some fractional number around it.  But does it really matter if it's 21M, or 20.999M?

[kjj]

The exact number, assuming we don't extend the unit size beyond 1E-8, will be 20,999,999.9769.

The subsidy shifts out of a 64 bit integer.  If we change to a 128 bit representation, there will be a miniscule extra amount.

[fb39ca4]

I like the idea of going with the metric system for naming smaller amounts of BTC.