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Topic: Can bitcoins be lost? (Read 3030 times)

legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1473
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
June 25, 2011, 05:53:17 PM
#51
Who would throw their laptop into the water if it wasn't broken?

Sell it to me for BTC!
muc
newbie
Activity: 42
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 05:39:48 PM
#50
I'm sorry but I don't get the point of this thread.

Can you lose bitcoin currency?

Hmmm

Yesterday I threw my laptop overboard and watched it sink beneath the waves. I guess I lost all of my bitcoin currency that was on in it. I guess I should have backed-up my wallet.dat and kept it in a secure location.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1473
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
June 25, 2011, 05:31:45 PM
#49
You are spot on. Simply put, make a copy/backup of your wallet file and store it on another medium (i.e. hard drive, flash drive, separate pc, etc.).
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 05:01:15 PM
#48
Check your premises.

If the rest of the world assumes that there are 1000 Bitcoins out there, and I assume that there are 21 million, Prices would be lower than my expectations. I would be able to buy even more than I expected with the bitcoins I had.

...I don't see a problem with that.
...
And when you want to sell one hour of your time for 1BTC and everybody say no, it worth only 0.0000001 BTC. What will you do ?

If everybody think there is 21 000 000 BTC in world and there is only 1 000. What will happen ? BTC will be really rare, so they will worth a lot. It's stupid to assume there is 21 000 000BTC. You must only watch the flows and adapt to them.

I will either work for 1 satoshi an hour, or I won't work. More likely, though, I'll find someone willing to pay more, even if it is less than what I was asking.

As the recent instability has shown, It's stupid to think the bitcoins you see are the only ones there are.

Of course we must be watching sleeping wallet. But we have to adapt to market.

P.S: Everybody: don't panic about lost BTC, when computer will become more powerfull, we will upgrade all our addresses to prevent cracking. And addresses that were not updated will be cracked. So BTC will never be lost. That's my point. I want to break the myth about lost BTC.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 04:33:12 PM
#47
Check your premises.

If the rest of the world assumes that there are 1000 Bitcoins out there, and I assume that there are 21 million, Prices would be lower than my expectations. I would be able to buy even more than I expected with the bitcoins I had.

...I don't see a problem with that.
...
And when you want to sell one hour of your time for 1BTC and everybody say no, it worth only 0.0000001 BTC. What will you do ?

If everybody think there is 21 000 000 BTC in world and there is only 1 000. What will happen ? BTC will be really rare, so they will worth a lot. It's stupid to assume there is 21 000 000BTC. You must only watch the flows and adapt to them.

I will either work for 1 satoshi an hour, or I won't work. More likely, though, I'll find someone willing to pay more, even if it is less than what I was asking.

As the recent instability has shown, It's stupid to think the bitcoins you see are the only ones there are.
newbie
Activity: 14
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 04:28:03 PM
#46
Check your premises.

If the rest of the world assumes that there are 1000 Bitcoins out there, and I assume that there are 21 million, Prices would be lower than my expectations. I would be able to buy even more than I expected with the bitcoins I had.

...I don't see a problem with that.
...
And when you want to sell one hour of your time for 1BTC and everybody say no, it worth only 0.0000001 BTC. What will you do ?

If everybody think there is 21 000 000 BTC in world and there is only 1 000. What will happen ? BTC will be really rare, so they will worth a lot. It's stupid to assume there is 21 000 000BTC. You must only watch the flows and adapt to them.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 04:06:14 PM
#45
You seem to be trying to convince me that being rich is a bad thing.
No. I am not. You can go back and read my entries again if you wish to continue.

So you're basically not a risk taker and are fine with being mediocre with no chance of becoming rich?  That's fine for risk adverse people but there are plenty of others that enjoy investing/saving in hopes of becoming rich.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 03:45:21 PM
#44
Awww... it was just getting good. You were going to explain to me how people could tell which coins were saved and which ones were lost.
I was? If you'd bother to read what you have been encouraged to read, you'd realize that's why the uncertainty becomes greater in the future. At this point, I could point you to the dictionary's definition of obtuse, but you just sound like a troll.

Yes, yes, you worry that because bitcoins might be 'lost', and might suddenly come back on the market, that people will be uncertain of the total amount in circulation. I contend that if they assume that there are 21million available for circulation, no currency dump, no matter how large, will depress the price significantly or long-term. Since coins that are gone for good because someone lost the private key and coins that are out of circulation because someone is saving are functionally identical, the only way for the market to function is to assume 21 million coins. Any other assumption leads to exactly the problem you point out.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 09:26:19 AM
#43
Awww... it was just getting good. You were going to explain to me how people could tell which coins were saved and which ones were lost.
I was? If you'd bother to read what you have been encouraged to read, you'd realize that's why the uncertainty becomes greater in the future. At this point, I could point you to the dictionary's definition of obtuse, but you just sound like a troll.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 02:50:28 AM
#42
Awww... it was just getting good. You were going to explain to me how people could tell which coins were saved and which ones were lost.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 02:30:15 AM
#41
You have this thread and the one I linked to earlier in this thread. Read. I'm done.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 02:26:22 AM
#40
Can you tell me how many are in circulation right now? 'cause I don't have this magical market-vision all the people in the future are going to have.
Do you see the three words underneath your cat picture?
I should, I put them there. But for once, I'm going to re-rail the thread. You are claiming that people can 'see' 1000 or a million or however many Bitcoins are in circulation. I'd like to know how, exactly. 'Lost' coins are identical to saved coins, as far as the market is concerned. You can't even tell by examining the blockchain.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 02:04:45 AM
#39
Can you tell me how many are in circulation right now? 'cause I don't have this magical market-vision all the people in the future are going to have.
Do you see the three words underneath your cat picture?
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 01:52:25 AM
#38
Can you tell me how many are in circulation right now? 'cause I don't have this magical market-vision all the people in the future are going to have.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 01:35:33 AM
#37
Make a lot of money?
Only if you sell them. And sell them before someone else who thinks like you. And maybe everyone will think like you, thus the valuation won't be as high as you hoped. In fact, suppose everyone walks around with this currency of which there's only apparently 1,000 in circulation, but they all assume there's 21 million out there. Not much of a currency then, is it? Not a lot to go around, but everyone operates under the assumption that there might be 21 million out there.

That's exactly the point. You see 1,000 in circulation, but have to assume that 21 thousand times that number could be dumped into the market. That clearly is a different set of dynamics than today's market in Bitcoins. Thank you for clarifying my point by indicating your need to assume that 21 thousand times the number of Bitcoins could exist than what are in circulation in such circumstances.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 01:06:06 AM
#36
Not if they assume there are always 21 million in circulation. Wink
Let's say it's the far future and you have a lot of Bitcoins and you're one of the ones who assumes*(That there are 21million Coins) that. However, it appears that most others don't assume that. As a result, the price(of bitcoins) is really high as compared to your assumptions. Logically, what would you do?


Make a lot of money?



*(Italics are my clarifications)
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 12:49:01 AM
#35
You seem to be trying to convince me that being rich is a bad thing.
No. I am not. You can go back and read my entries again if you wish to continue.
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
June 25, 2011, 12:34:29 AM
#34
Check your premises.

If the rest of the world assumes that there are 1000 Bitcoins out there, and I assume that there are 21 million, Prices would be lower than my expectations. I would be able to buy even more than I expected with the bitcoins I had.
I was referring to the value of Bitcoins. You're referring to the price of goods.
You seem to be trying to convince me that being rich is a bad thing.
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
June 25, 2011, 12:25:55 AM
#33
Check your premises.

If the rest of the world assumes that there are 1000 Bitcoins out there, and I assume that there are 21 million, Prices would be lower than my expectations. I would be able to buy even more than I expected with the bitcoins I had.
I was referring to the value of Bitcoins. You're referring to the price of goods.
legendary
Activity: 1272
Merit: 1012
howdy
June 25, 2011, 12:20:05 AM
#32
This might be related, but if I kept multiple backups on my wallet.dat all over the place and all of a sudden lost all my most recent backups.... would an old wallet.dat still count as my wallet and my recent transactions will show up after a re download of blocks?

Thanks!
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