aye... thats probably the best way to look at it... Bitcoin chain isnt a chain... its a single link of currency in the chain of currency.. it links together USD, GBP, PLN, all those other currencies... and eventually the next version of bitcoin...
the money will evolve if it doesnt die out.. :3
Topic: We will run out of coins eventually! (Read 1556 times)
if bitcoin succeeds there will be new blockchains, people will start trading bitcoins for those other coins and eventually the original blockchain will be abandoned, leaving most of its flaws and dead weight behind. for example, nobody needs the transaction history of the last fifty years.
Neither is bitcoin designed to retain the history for all time. Though not implemented yet, the system is designed to purse spend transaction outputs from storage, after the spending is buried deep enough in the block chain.
if bitcoin succeeds there will be new blockchains, people will start trading bitcoins for those other coins and eventually the original blockchain will be abandoned, leaving most of its flaws and dead weight behind. for example, nobody needs the transaction history of the last fifty years.
but the lost coins dont matter.. if they arnt lost... they are just used eventually and pushed back in to the system.
The problem is there is no way to distinguish between "lost" coins and coins being purposefully held for a long time, like in the case of a savings account.
Probably not. Unless everyone loses their wallet at the same time, there will be coins. The amount of coins will reduce over time, but will asymptotically approach 0.
For example, if the number of coins remaining is halved every year, will we ever run out?
For example, if the number of coins remaining is halved every year, will we ever run out?
That sounds like a neat solution!
the coins never actually vanish, they stay in the cloud forever.. it is the addresses that contain the coins that vanish.
Also, dont forget, that until 2140 or so, were going to be still accumulating coins every 10 minutes.
after that point, vanishing coins may eventually become a problem... but i'm sure by then it would be solved.
Personally my solution is to update the coins to a new version every few decades. everyone runs the new software, and it automatically converts their wallet to the new version.. every time a transaction is made, old coins get pushed in to the new version transparently. If after a year there is less than say 75% of the coins on the new system, make blocks start containing newly minted coins. once the money gets to around 20mil again stop minting new coins.
This might mean that if joe schmoe was holding on to 500,000 BTC somewhere, and only after the new coins finished minting he converted, there might be say 24mil coins in the system.. but thats okay, slowly some will get lost, and just keep repeating every so often, keeping the average 21mil +/- 5mil
Also, dont forget, that until 2140 or so, were going to be still accumulating coins every 10 minutes.
after that point, vanishing coins may eventually become a problem... but i'm sure by then it would be solved.
Personally my solution is to update the coins to a new version every few decades. everyone runs the new software, and it automatically converts their wallet to the new version.. every time a transaction is made, old coins get pushed in to the new version transparently. If after a year there is less than say 75% of the coins on the new system, make blocks start containing newly minted coins. once the money gets to around 20mil again stop minting new coins.
This might mean that if joe schmoe was holding on to 500,000 BTC somewhere, and only after the new coins finished minting he converted, there might be say 24mil coins in the system.. but thats okay, slowly some will get lost, and just keep repeating every so often, keeping the average 21mil +/- 5mil
Coins will get lost and dissappear, is there a way to see how many coins there are That are out of cirkulation so far?
If one percent of the coins get lost every year, 40% of the coins will be gone in 50 years. 50 years is a very long time in Internet years, but a fairly short time in currency years.
If one percent of the coins get lost every year, 40% of the coins will be gone in 50 years. 50 years is a very long time in Internet years, but a fairly short time in currency years.
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