Topic: Theoretically there will be exactly no bitcoins in the future. - page 2. (Read 2387 times)

What are we talking here? What math?
Many coins are lost due to beginners faults, especially in early days when btc was almost worthless. As we approaching 1k$ i think this percentage will be only less and less until become negligible values.
You'll never know for sure if some coins are actually lost except if those coins are not yours.

Yes people are already started to make better projects even now.. more secure.. private.. etc etc features... but bitcoins has gained repo over a long period hence still the top one. But when the 1st place is out of the league the 2nd takes its place.

It matters because people lie, cheat and steal and should not be rewarded for it.

If the alleged loss can be absolutely proven to be unspendable, then I have no issues.

Ah, I see what you are saying.  New bitcoins will continue to be generated for more than the next 100 years...

Ok, I'll go back and edit my post.  I was thinking that you meant after all new bitcoins were mined.

But then more would be generated in the next block.

Nope.  Try the math.

Lets assume that 10% of all the remaining bitcoins are lost every year.  That's a ridiculous amount.  At today's exchange rate that's a permanent loss from circulation of $882 million dollars worth of bitcoins. I think most people would occur that losses will be much less than that.  But, for the sake of argument, how long will it take until there is nothing left?

10 years?  Nope.  After 10 years there will still be 7322247.24210000 BTC remaining.

50 years? Nope.  After 50 years there will still be 108229.27935400000 BTC remaining.

150 years?  Nope. After 150 years there will still be 2.874721060000 BTC remaining.

500 years?  Nope. After 250 years there will still be 7635.6610000000 satoshis remaining.

1000 years?  Nope.  After 1000 years there will still be 0.00000000000000036705296286175683 yoctoBTC

Keep adding decimal places (and shifting over the decimal point), and you can keep losing a percentage of what's left and still have more than trillions of spendable units.


If it's a simple case of lost private key, you can't.  Why does that matter?

There are cases of outputs scripts that are provably unspendable.  In those cases you can count those bitcoins that are permanently unspendable.


This is only possible if mathematical weaknesses are discovered in the cryptographic functions that bitcoin currently uses.  I suppose that could happen, but there is no way right now to be certain that such a thing will ever happen.


There was an analysis done in July 2014 that found (at that time) there were a total of 2,745.22283996 BTC that were provably permanently lost:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-many-bitcoins-have-been-provably-lost-at-least-675321

This is not possible. I didn't notice presence of black hole on blockchain, don't worry!

Many of us don't count on our memory(heads) for storing passwords for wallets.
Few people have lost their coins but this is their funeral!

although bitcoin can still be valuable when it gets lesser. I have to agree there are lots of altcoins that will replace once btc is proved to be really not going to work in the future. there are altcoins seem to have a sophisticated system and can adapt to changes.

It only makes sense increase decimal places if there are things that cost way less than 1 satoshi.

Imagine that in the far future 1 satoshi is worth $100, that means you cannot use bitcoin to pay less than that, so, more decimal places.

That's not how divisibility works. You start using/create a unit that is smaller Satoshi. For example 100 satoshi = 100 000 laudas.

Bitcoin is highly divisible, so if there is demand for Bitcoin, the price will just keep growing. Even if 20,999,999 BTC were lost forever, that remaining BTC will be enough, just make it more divisible (extend amount of divisibility more than 8 decimal places). Price would be insane for 1 BTC but the system would still work.

It's very unprovable that so many coins get lost but you are right, if time is infinite and supply is limited, at some point supply will be 0 theoretically.
It will probably take 1000 years for this being a problem so this is something future generations must have to deal with.

Okay lets assume we have lost most of the bitcoins. Once a threshold reaches people will stop using them all together.. but u are forgetting this is an 'Idea' there are lot many potential coins.. just ready to take its place. And people like us are so used to with it, there will always be a virtual currency. Bitcoin is the current face.. later i can be anything..

It has just began my friend

Well reworking the divisible units might solve it, but I am not entirely sure about it.


Look at this example:

Imagine that 100 satoshi actually means something. You can buy thing A for 100 satoshi. Now you would renumber so 100 satoshi would be actually 10 000 satoshi.

That would either mean that thing A that costed 100 still costs 100 satoshi and then everybody got suddenly super rich or what costed 100 satoshi now costs 10 000 satoshi and nothing has changed. And therefore the rework of divisible units failed.

And the quote from Satoshi is correct but not indefinitely. I know its not our problem, but it is a question to ask.

/edit typo

two things are impossible in Bitcoin (in my opinion) , I mean you could try but It will be always estimated and nothing exact :

• Having the number of users (wallets != users)
• know how much coins are lost

How do you tell the difference between a lost coin and a coin held for investment?

If this is a problem for the next generations then let them sort it out. BTW if they really want, I'm pretty sure they can hard fork BTC for replacing lost coins or adding more coins to the network. Or they can just replace the whole thing with something new in CLAM style.

I haven't really thought of that but it is a possibility that can happen in the future.
It'd be nice to exactly know how much bitcoin is in circulation right now, but I believe that at this moment we don't have much many lost bitcoins.

But the next generation has to be smart to handle this.

Correct. There is a maximum of ~2.1 quadrillion unique transaction units right now. This could be increased if necessary, but I doubt that it will ever be needed.

I'm not sure about that.

Quoting Satoshi again:

Next generation miners will be treasure hunters. They will recover the lost coins.