Restoring Lost Bitcoins - page 2. | Bitcointalksearch.org

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 12:07:35 PM

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 12:03:02 PM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 12:00:18 PM

Let's do the math. There are 2,100,000,000,000,000 bitcoin units approximately. Let's assume there are 5 billion people using bitcoins and each one loses 1 bitcoin every year. Then, in ten years, the money supply will drop to 2,099,950,000,000,000, which is a significant economic impact.

AFAIK, one can only 'lose bitcoins' by losing the private key of your wallet. I somehow doubt that 5b people are going to lose their wallet once a year, and have 0 backups.

That's not quite true: I can lose one bitcoin by restoring a slightly older backup than I thought. Or by trusting an online wallet that gets hacked (then I could lose much more bitcoins). Or by having many wallets and lose one of them (quite probable if I try to maintain lots of wallets and are slightly disorganized). The scenarios are endless.

Hacked wallets aren't 'lost', they're 'stolen'. Big difference.

Plus, your backup wallet gives you access to the blockchain where your coins are 'held'. AFAIK, if you create a backup, recieve 20m coins, destroy the current wallet and restore the backup, you still have access to your 20m coins because the coins aren't in the wallet, they're in the blockchain.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 12:03:02 PM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 12:00:18 PM

Let's do the math. There are 2,100,000,000,000,000 bitcoin units approximately. Let's assume there are 5 billion people using bitcoins and each one loses 1 bitcoin every year. Then, in ten years, the money supply will drop to 2,099,950,000,000,000, which is a significant economic impact.

AFAIK, one can only 'lose bitcoins' by losing the private key of your wallet. I somehow doubt that 5b people are going to lose their wallet once a year, and have 0 backups.

That's not quite true: I can lose one bitcoin by restoring a slightly older backup than I thought. Or by trusting an online wallet that gets hacked (then I could lose much more bitcoins). Or by having many wallets and lose one of them (quite probable if I try to maintain lots of wallets and are slightly disorganized). The scenarios are endless.

I would prefer to believe that this is not really a problem, since Bitcoin is so beautifully designed.

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 12:00:18 PM

Let's do the math. There are 2,100,000,000,000,000 bitcoin units approximately. Let's assume there are 5 billion people using bitcoins and each one loses 1 bitcoin every year. Then, in ten years, the money supply will drop to 2,099,950,000,000,000, which is a significant economic impact.

AFAIK, one can only 'lose bitcoins' by losing the private key of your wallet. I somehow doubt that 5b people are going to lose their wallet once a year, and have 0 backups.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 11:45:48 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:41:23 AM

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 11:32:29 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 07:16:15 AM

Quote

The solution is to define an expiration period for bitcoins

NO

Quote

The expiration interval could be a very comfortable one, say, 10 years.

NO

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Hello, wake up. Read what i bolded. We DO NOT WANT to lose bitcoins. THERE IS NO NEED to tell "lost bitcoins" from idle ones. There is NO NEED to make them show up. NO NEED to set a deadline and let them EXPIRE!

Seriously, do GOLD expire? NO! Why my BITCOIN should expire? Cause a noob so decided in the noob forum? Nah.

Here is why lost bitcoins are a problem: they will not be a problem as the loss of large 'savings' wallets. They will rather become a problem when Bitcoin is used by billions of people, each losing an "irrelevant" amount of bitcoins: these billions of "irrelevant" losses can have a big impact on the money supply. As for the 'savings' wallet, it will either be accessing some investment system, or stored in some periodically self-connected gadget or even in a long-term storage device that we will check periodically since it has an important amount of money that we cannot aford to lose. The problem is rather in the small losses, once bitcoin becomes our society's money (that's what we want, right?).

Bitcoins are divisible into 8 decimal places. Even if 1m bitcoins are 'lost', the money supply won't be affected, as there are many many 'units' of bitcoins available.

Let's do the math. There are 2,100,000,000,000,000 bitcoin units approximately. Let's assume there are 5 billion people using bitcoins and each one loses 1 bitcoin every year. Then, in ten years, the money supply will drop to 2,099,950,000,000,000, which is a significant economic impact.

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:41:23 AM

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 11:32:29 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 07:16:15 AM

Quote

The solution is to define an expiration period for bitcoins

NO

Quote

The expiration interval could be a very comfortable one, say, 10 years.

NO

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Hello, wake up. Read what i bolded. We DO NOT WANT to lose bitcoins. THERE IS NO NEED to tell "lost bitcoins" from idle ones. There is NO NEED to make them show up. NO NEED to set a deadline and let them EXPIRE!

Seriously, do GOLD expire? NO! Why my BITCOIN should expire? Cause a noob so decided in the noob forum? Nah.

Here is why lost bitcoins are a problem: they will not be a problem as the loss of large 'savings' wallets. They will rather become a problem when Bitcoin is used by billions of people, each losing an "irrelevant" amount of bitcoins: these billions of "irrelevant" losses can have a big impact on the money supply. As for the 'savings' wallet, it will either be accessing some investment system, or stored in some periodically self-connected gadget or even in a long-term storage device that we will check periodically since it has an important amount of money that we cannot aford to lose. The problem is rather in the small losses, once bitcoin becomes our society's money (that's what we want, right?).

Bitcoins are divisible into 8 decimal places. Even if 1m bitcoins are 'lost', the money supply won't be affected, as there are many many 'units' of bitcoins available.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 11:32:29 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 07:16:15 AM

Quote

The solution is to define an expiration period for bitcoins

NO

Quote

The expiration interval could be a very comfortable one, say, 10 years.

NO

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Hello, wake up. Read what i bolded. We DO NOT WANT to lose bitcoins. THERE IS NO NEED to tell "lost bitcoins" from idle ones. There is NO NEED to make them show up. NO NEED to set a deadline and let them EXPIRE!

Seriously, do GOLD expire? NO! Why my BITCOIN should expire? Cause a noob so decided in the noob forum? Nah.

Here is why lost bitcoins can be a problem: they will not be a problem as the loss of large 'savings' wallets. They will rather become a problem when Bitcoin is used by billions of people, each losing an "irrelevant" amount of bitcoins: these billions of "irrelevant" losses can have a big impact on the money supply. As for the 'savings' wallet, it will either be accessing some investment system, or stored in some periodically self-connected gadget or even in a long-term storage device that we will check periodically since it has an important amount of money that we cannot aford to lose.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 11:27:38 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:13:54 AM

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 11:07:45 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:03:47 AM

The problem is that we are still thinking of bitcoin as not being serious money.

I'm not aware of any 'serious money' that just disappears after Xyrs of inactivity, only to be redistributed to others

I agree that it's somewhat of a problem discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored'. But that's up to the market.

Money just disappearing is quite common: just put U$ 10,000.00 under your pillow and let ten years pass to see a good deal of money disappear.

Regarding the problem of discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored', it's more then a bit of a problem: it is impossible, which leads to the money supply being continuously eroded, hence to a higher level of deflation than is necessary. The idea is to preserve the monetary system, making it more resilient.

The fiat in my mattress may devalue, but it doesn't disappear.

The difference between worthless money and nonexistent money would not bother me that much: what matters is that neither one allows me to buy anything.

Gabi

legendary

Activity: 1148

Merit: 1008

If you want to walk on water, get out of the boat

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

Quote from: Gabi on October 18, 2011, 07:16:15 AM

Quote

The solution is to define an expiration period for bitcoins

NO

Quote

The expiration interval could be a very comfortable one, say, 10 years.

NO

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Hello, wake up. Read what i bolded. We DO NOT WANT to lose bitcoins. THERE IS NO NEED to tell "lost bitcoins" from idle ones. There is NO NEED to make them show up. NO NEED to set a deadline and let them EXPIRE!

Seriously, do GOLD expire? NO! Why my BITCOIN should expire? Cause a noob so decided in the noob forum? Nah.

memvola

hero member

Activity: 938

Merit: 1002

I don't like expiration idea because:

Bitbills, coins, savings nuggets and whatnot. Those can be in circulation for god knows how long. (e.g. I shouldn't need to keep track of the expiration dates of my coins stored in a physical safe I don't have direct physical access to.)
Bitcoin is not similar to bank ~~notes~~ accounts, it is supposed to be analogous to gold.
Lost coins isn't a bad enough threat.
Bitcoin will eventually move to a different algorithm and decades old addresses will one day be easily crackable. Natural expiration.
Coma patient argument is convincing.

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:13:54 AM

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 11:07:45 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:03:47 AM

The problem is that we are still thinking of bitcoin as not being serious money.

I'm not aware of any 'serious money' that just disappears after Xyrs of inactivity, only to be redistributed to others

I agree that it's somewhat of a problem discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored'. But that's up to the market.

Money just disappearing is quite common: just put U$ 10,000.00 under your pillow and let ten years pass to see a good deal of money disappear.

Regarding the problem of discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored', it's more then a bit of a problem: it is impossible, which leads to the money supply being continuously eroded, hence to a higher level of deflation than is necessary. The idea is to preserve the monetary system, making it more resilient.

The fiat in my mattress may devalue, but it doesn't disappear.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 11:07:45 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:03:47 AM

The problem is that we are still thinking of bitcoin as not being serious money.

I'm not aware of any 'serious money' that just disappears after Xyrs of inactivity, only to be redistributed to others

I agree that it's somewhat of a problem discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored'. But that's up to the market.

Money just disappearing is quite common: just put U$ 10,000.00 under your pillow and let ten years pass to see a good deal of money disappear.

Regarding the problem of discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored', it's more then a bit of a problem: it is impossible, which leads to the money supply being continuously eroded, hence to a higher level of deflation than is necessary. The idea is to preserve the monetary system, making it more resilient.

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 11:03:47 AM

The problem is that we are still thinking of bitcoin as not being serious money.

I'm not aware of any 'serious money' that just disappears after Xyrs of inactivity, only to be redistributed to others

I agree that it's somewhat of a problem discerning which bitcoins are 'lost' vs which ones are 'stored'. But that's up to the market.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 10:57:59 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 10:51:10 AM

I understand your worries perfectly. But let me try addressing them. Regarding 'wallet' situations, case closed: there is no problem with an expiration period, provided bitcoin becomes our everyday money (which I hope it will). Now regarding 'savings' situations. In ten years (from now), we will certainly have (if we do not already have) technology for building bitcoin wallet gadgets capable of activating themselves and connecting to the network before their contained bitcoins expire, which solves all your worries, in addition to finally telling you where the heck are those savings you no longer remember where you hided. And don't tell me this sounds like science fiction: remember we are talking about bitcoin, which ten years ago would sound much more so.

However, I would like to stress that even without such gadgets most people simply won't let ten years pass without accessing their 'savings' wallet (even from the hospital), at least if it contains serious money.

A device which connects to a network automatically is just asking to be hacked. Thats why the 'savings' are offline in cold storage. And still does nothing to address medical situations that occur now (ie coma).

Well, if this expiration period is implemented now, then it will just occur ten years from now, so we will not have to worry about it for a long time.

And although those gadgets are possible, if you have a wallet with a serious amount of society's current money, you will much more probably have it invested in some way, rather than just stored in a pen drive hidden somewhere. The problem is that we are still thinking of bitcoin as not being serious money.

As for the device being hacked, bitcoin's protection is in its cryptography, and not in the gadget itself.

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 10:51:10 AM

I understand your worries perfectly. But let me try addressing them. Regarding 'wallet' situations, case closed: there is no problem with an expiration period, provided bitcoin becomes our everyday money (which I hope it will). Now regarding 'savings' situations. In ten years (from now), we will certainly have (if we do not already have) technology for building bitcoin wallet gadgets capable of activating themselves and connecting to the network before their contained bitcoins expire, which solves all your worries, in addition to finally telling you where the heck are those savings you no longer remember where you hided. And don't tell me this sounds like science fiction: remember we are talking about bitcoin, which ten years ago would sound much more so.

However, I would like to stress that even without such gadgets most people simply won't let ten years pass without accessing their 'savings' wallet (even from the hospital), at least if it contains serious money.

A device which connects to a network automatically is just asking to be hacked. Thats why the 'savings' are offline in cold storage. And still does nothing to address medical situations that occur now (ie coma).

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 10:34:02 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 10:19:36 AM

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 10:03:58 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Someone goes into a coma for too long, they wake up to their bitcoins gone. Thats just one example, but enough for me.

If bitcoin is to become our everyday money, then we will access our wallets at least once each, say, ten years, don't you think? For how many days can you afford not touching your wallet (I mean the one with dollars)? If bitcoin is to be our actual money, then that's the time interval you will be able to stay away from your bitcoin wallet. And every time you do, it will check your bitcoins expiration status and warn you, asking what to do.

That leaves the situation in which you keep a separate wallet full of bitcoins that you never touch. Yet even in this case I would restore it at least once each five years or so just to ensure it still works, wouldn't you?

Yes, but there are 'wallet' situations and 'savings' situations. Bitcoins in 'savings' could be in a safe, or a vault (on a USB drive or via a paper key). And you still haven't addressed the medical emergencies which could potentially cause your 'savings' to expire, just so some other miners out there could get a few more coins. No thanks.

I understand your worries perfectly. But let me try addressing them. Regarding 'wallet' situations, case closed: there is no problem with an expiration period, provided bitcoin becomes our everyday money (which I hope it will). Now regarding 'savings' situations. In ten years (from now), we will certainly have (if we do not already have) technology for building bitcoin wallet gadgets capable of activating themselves and connecting to the network before their contained bitcoins expire, which solves all your worries, in addition to finally telling you where the heck are those savings you no longer remember where you hided. And don't tell me this sounds like science fiction: remember we are talking about bitcoin, which ten years ago would sound much more so.

However, I would like to stress that even without such gadgets most people simply won't let ten years pass without accessing their 'savings' wallet (even from the hospital), at least if it contains serious money.

johnj

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 10:19:36 AM

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 10:03:58 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Someone goes into a coma for too long, they wake up to their bitcoins gone. Thats just one example, but enough for me.

If bitcoin is to become our everyday money, then we will access our wallets at least once each, say, ten years, don't you think? For how many days can you afford not touching your wallet (I mean the one with dollars)? If bitcoin is to be our actual money, then that's the time interval you will be able to stay away from your bitcoin wallet. And every time you do, it will check your bitcoins expiration status and warn you, asking what to do.

That leaves the situation in which you keep a separate wallet full of bitcoins that you never touch. Yet even in this case I would restore it at least once each five years or so just to ensure it still works, wouldn't you?

Yes, but there are 'wallet' situations and 'savings' situations. Bitcoins in 'savings' could be in a safe, or a vault (on a USB drive or via a paper key). And you still haven't addressed the medical emergencies which could potentially cause your 'savings' to expire, just so some other miners out there could get a few more coins. No thanks.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: ahimsa on October 18, 2011, 10:27:48 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 06:47:06 AM

Hi,

Then the Bitcoin client must have functionality to resend those bitcoins to their current wallet (or to any other wallet) before they expire

Really cute feature but why would we want forced communication (resend those bitcoins to their current wallet) in an anonymous currency?

Unintended consequences anyone?

When I used to write code years ago, I had a motto. Make things simple, straightforward and let them behave the same always. The reason is that flexibiliy = Complexity Squared. And complexity leads to buggy systems.

Besides all the other reasons not to do this is you are building in a massive amount of complexity dealing with all this "Sending bitcoins to their current wallet" stuff.

My thoughts.

The bitcoin client already sends bitcoins back to your wallet in various situations: it is already quite complicated. The aim is precisely to guarantee anonymity. In the expiration scenario, it would do the same to guarantee not anonymity, but the fixed supply of bitcoins.

ahimsa

newbie

Activity: 8

Merit: 0

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 06:47:06 AM

Hi,

Then the Bitcoin client must have functionality to resend those bitcoins to their current wallet (or to any other wallet) before they expire

Really cute feature but why would we want forced communication (resend those bitcoins to their current wallet) in an anonymous currency?

Unintended consequences anyone?

When I used to write code years ago, I had a motto. Make things simple, straightforward and let them behave the same always. The reason is that flexibiliy = Complexity Squared. And complexity leads to buggy systems.

Besides all the other reasons not to do this is you are building in a massive amount of complexity dealing with all this "Sending bitcoins to their current wallet" stuff.

My thoughts.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: deepceleron on October 18, 2011, 10:16:24 AM

I mined the coins, it's my godamm'd right to never spend them! The unborn grandkids that will inherit them will think it's novel that I mined them on a video card that didn't even have a laser 7 holo output or quark computing.

That's the way one would think about toy money, but if bitcoin will ever become our everyday money, then we would have to take it much more seriously.

mirelo

sr. member

Activity: 242

Merit: 250

Quote from: johnj on October 18, 2011, 10:03:58 AM

Quote from: mirelo on October 18, 2011, 08:17:25 AM

No? Why?

Since there is no way of telling idle bitcoins from lost ones, the only way I see to tell them apart is forcing the idle ones to "show up" before some "deadline," and if they don't, then expire them. If not, then please let me (and the others) know why not.

Someone goes into a coma for too long, they wake up to their bitcoins gone. Thats just one example, but enough for me.

If bitcoin is to become our everyday money, then we will access our wallets at least once each, say, ten years, don't you think? For how many days can you afford not touching your wallet (I mean the one with dollars)? If bitcoin is to be our actual money, then that's the time interval you will be able to stay away from your bitcoin wallet. And every time you do, it will check your bitcoins expiration status and warn you, asking what to do.

That leaves the situation in which you keep a separate wallet full of bitcoins that you never touch. Yet even in this case I would restore it at least once each five years or so just to ensure it still works, wouldn't you?

Topic: Restoring Lost Bitcoins - page 2. (Read 2658 times)