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In enough years, supply could become so limited as to cripple the usage of btc.
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Keeping in mind that bitcoins can currently be divided into 100,000,000 spendable units (commonly called "Satoshis"), how many bitcoins will we have to lose to cripple the usage?
Yes, I understand. In principle there's not bottom to the number of times we can divide a unit into subunits. I think you're right that this is better than adding more coins to the system. However, my knowledge is limited.
Also, I suppose this problem is so far off that we needn't worry about it too much now, though.
Considering that newly minted units will continue to be created until approximately the year 2140, I'd agree.
I can also image a kind of solution where some percentage of bitcoins is assumed to be lost each year and mining starts creating new coins again. The idea would not be to make the currency an inflationary one, just to stabilize it a bit if it ever overall lossage ever actually became a problem.
No.
This will almost certainly never happen, and since we can just keep sub-dividing the units that we have, there really isn't any reason to either.
You know, another thing that might happen is that computing power goes through the roof and in 10 years all new bitcoins and all old bitcoins that anyone actually cares about need to be regenerated with a larger keypair. Then, you might have a bitcoin "salvage" business where all of those old coins with only 256 size keys can be 'dug up' by someone interested in finding them.
Unless some mathematician finds weaknesses in the algorithms, computers will never be fast enough (and there will never be eough power available in the solar system) to brute force a 256 bit key.
You haven't supported your last point as well as your earlier ones. How can you show that "there will never be enough power in the solar system" to brute force a 256 bit key? Again, I'm not an expert but I think that quantum computers may be relevant to the discussion. However, I'm just waiting to hear your argument on this last point. I think it's interesting, but even more so if you can prove it.
