I have thought along similar lines in the past..even if we quibble about actual number of coins lost (not 30% but 20% or 10%) and the dollar volumes..currently at $50 million a day and not $20 million.... it is very likely that future demand and usage will increase over and above the increase in supply from mining and those selling after they reach their price "target".
- Businesses like bitpay have a target of a 33 fold increase in merchants by end of 2016 from 35k to 1 million.
- Xapo not even 1 month old, has potential to have 1 million business/travelers use their card within 12 months ( as barring $/bitcoin exchange rate fluctuations it is cheaper to use for foreign currency transactions compared to traditional cards and much cheaper if the general trend of bitcoin price is upward ( which it still is))
- The un-banked/under banked = 2.5 Billion. These people are interested in having card options as its easier and cheaper for many products to buy using cards on line ..just capture 1 % of that market of which 88 million are in the USA
- remittance sector..$450 billion / yr....current rates using bitcoin are about 2-3% total to remit abroad including echange rate conversion...traditional services are 3- 10 % but in parts of Africa its 30% +..a large part of that market can move to bitcoin over time.
Payment sector like dish/utilities is massive.
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/financial_services/counting_the_worlds_unbankedhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/darden/2014/06/05/fighting-financial-exclusion-how-to-serve-88-million-americans-who-have-no-bank/Add all that together and it is huge..its not here yet but so many industries are working toward that and will succeed and at the current pace it will be soon.
