I found this story fascinating:
Apparently, there was a 'bug" (or rather technically undefined area) in the original bitcoin code that would produce ANOTHER 21 mil btc starting in the year 256 from the get-go.
The "bug" was eradicated in BIP-42, which was done post-Satoshi.
Without BIP-42, rewards of 50BTC would restart in 256 years, then halvings would continue again (from 50btc/reward to down).
A bit of 'conspiracy' theory on my side, but how do we know that this was
not the Satoshi's intent?
I keep reading about 4 mil 'lost" already in just 14 years.
What if Satoshi surmised that this loss in 256 years (with issuance stopping by year 2140) would bring available bitcoin numbers too low and actually designed the "bug" to revitalize bitcoin about a century after. Interesting, but would not affect things in our lifespan, perhaps.
See the discussion of BIP-42 here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4r878s/in_case_you_missed_it_two_years_ago_bip_42_is/You have a relatively creative imagination, yet what you are describing could not have been Satoshi's intent.
It does not make any sense to start the issuing of blockrewards over again at 50 coins per ever 10 minutes... that would really fuck up incentives and overall value... so that's a bug.. not a "hidden - true intention" of satoshi.
Perhaps it was not his intent, albeit we would never know, I assume, but, then, how to deal with bitcoin "evaporation"?
We, as a humanity, seem to have lost about 20% of ALL bitcoins that would ever be in a short 14 years.
I know that people dismiss it and say that the rest are just getting more valuable. True, but only in a short time.
However, think about it long term: a complete loss is inevitable within relatively short historical time frames.
So far, we were losing btc at a 1.36%
0.286% (of the total supply) a year.
With the same rate of loss going forward, it would be 59.5
350 years until
all btc is lost.
If the loss would decrease by a factor of 10, then it is 595
3500 years.
I don't have any problem with yor starting out by saying that maybe 20% of the Bitcoin have been lost or that maybe the loss rate is more than 1% per year, but even if we go by that math, losing 1% per year does not mean that the bitcoin supply is going to zero.
you must not know maths.
You can continue to lose 1% per year and the number will never go to zero.. it just gets smaller and smaller and smaller, but it does not go to zero... even if we were to assume 1.5% instead of 1% per year.
In other words, the whole world economy could run on 1 BTC. or 1 Satoshi. .. just divide the units in order to allow it to be more liquid (able to be spread out).. yes we might have to go to sub-satoshis, so what does that mean? Sucks to be a hodler? I think not.
Bitcoin is not broken due to its fixed and even shrinking supply... so there is no reason to fix it, and there would have been no reason for satoshi to put in such a dumb, illogical and inconsistent fix that started to issue more bitcoin supply, even though no coiners and low coiners frequently whine about such issues - partly based on their having had not sufficiently/adequately stacked up sats at earlier dates (and lower prices).
I find it amusing that the original code of Satoshi had in it a "revitalization" of bitcoin by a new issuance cycle after 256 years.
As 256 is < than 350 (my original number), but > than 59.5 there might would still be some non-zero btc remain when the new "cycle' would supposedly start, according to the original code, therefore, bitcoin never 'evaporates' fully and instead, revitalizes. If the rate of loss remains at 1.36% a year, all bitcoin evaporates before even the original Satoshi's solution (or omission/caveat) can work.
This is so dumb that I am not even going to talk about it.
There could be another solution (but I like Satoshi's better):
1. Change to the address system so everybody has to send their btc every, say, 50 100 years.
2. From that, surmise the actual "losses" and make a small random seepage of new btc, so total number never exceeds 21 mil. Not sure how to do it in code.
Still presuming that bitcoin's fix supply - and shrinking supply is a problem.
TL;DR All bitcoin will eventually "evaporate" according to the current code and historical human behavior.
Not true. You have bad maths...
perhaps bad sciences, too?BIP-42 might have been detrimental to the future (hundreds of years from now).
What an imagination you have
(a good thing?)
EDIT: the math is even worse: 1.36% loss a year, see correction. We would need to know the average loss per year pretty soon, maybe in the next couple of decades.
Not as urgent of a problem as you are making it out to be.
Maybe you and Philip need to team up? Remember that Philip thinks that the mining reward crises is coming within the next few decades, too... perhaps in the 2056 time frame.. so surely bitcoin is broken, right?
Whatever solutions I wrote in-I don't care about them, just a small suggestion, it could be something else, but the eventual "evaporation" problem is real and cannot be dismissed easily, and even mathematically as long as the loss is material and there is no add-ons after 2140.
Wow!!!!!
You are really going to town in terms of describing this matter as "urgent." There must be some merit to your claims, no?
#askingforafriendI thought that my original post clearly said that it is 1.36 % of the original supply of 21 mil, but let me reiterate the numbers;
Assuming 21 mil supply, apparently lost 4 mil in 14 years, therefore 4/21=0.19; 0.19/14=0.0136=1.36% (of 21 mil or 285714.286 btc/year).
If we currently have 17 mil maximum available supply (17=21-4), then 17000000/285714.286=59.5 years.
So...check your maths, buddy. You assumed % of the current when I talked about a linear loss of certain # of btc per year (which I indicated as % of the
bitcoin issuance for simplicity).
My point was that BIP-42 was already implemented in 2016, which is 249 years before an additional "cycle" would have begun.
Absolutely nothing is being said about much earlier (maybe in 60 years) possible event depicted above.
Sure, maybe the rate of the loss is lower (or higher?) now.
We just don't know. Maybe we should find out?
