Topic: Bitcoin Deflation - page 4. (Read 496 times)

so you want to introduce stealing someone elses retirement/inheritance plans simply because they have not decided to spend their retirement funds in X years

um no thanks

once you introduce a way to take value away from someones utxo without their signature. your breaking many rules of bitcoin that cant then be unbroken

Reintroduced by whom? Individuals control the private keys to their BTC, so if any lost BTC is going to be reintroduced, it has to be if the owner finds the private keys to their funds. It is not even possible to be sure of how much BTC's are lost, because it does not mean funds are lost if it has not moved from an address for many years.
Lost BTC's do not increase the number of BTC's in circulation, it reduces it, only 21 million BTC's are going to be mined, if you add the ones that are lost, then a few million less would be in circulation, but not more than the capped 21 million, and this doesn't affect the BTC network any bit, it should even make BTC more scarce and more valuable.
BTC was created only 14 years ago, and only the owner of a private key can move their BTC no matter how long it has remained inactive in an address.

Wouldn't it be better if lost coins were reintroduced into the network after a fixed span of inactivity?

I suppose the first thing one would say no for, would be by virtue of bitcoin's well-known deflationary property. This said, I believe it is much more important, especially in the longest term, that bitcoin keeps its property of conservation of energy, that is, having a fixed quantity of money ever available. By losing coins, instead, and by having them unrecoverable, we have not a fixed quantity of money available, rather a decreasing one, which is why we call bitcoin deflationary.

What would happen if we would make so that coins with 131 years of inactivity would be reintroduced into the network?

I see this having some positive effects:
- decreased impact of hereditary monopoly
- incentive to let the currency flow
- canceled the future necessity to increase the number of decimals for 1 BTC (very-long term perspective: too many coins have been lost, thus the necessity to further subdivide a coin)


FAQ (Further information in replies)

How do we identify lost coins?

Wallets would declare activity status by performing an active (sender) transaction, of any size, within a 131-year span.

How do we prevent reintroduced coins to cause financial distress and depreciation of coins?

This issue can be solved by new cycles of mining reintroducing money gradually over time, starting at the end of a mining age (131 years).

Who is going to reintroduce lost coins?

The protocol.

Does this mean stealing coins from users?

If the protocol reintroduces lost coins from inaccessible wallets, it is not considered stealing because the previous owner has lost control and ownership rights over those coins. The reintroduction is aimed at ensuring the functionality and integrity of the system rather than depriving the previous owner of their rightful property.