Topic: What to do with lost bitcoins - page 5. (Read 5600 times)

A bitcoin lost is a bitcoin gained by all bitcoin owners. It increases the value of the remaining coins. Its value comes from being scarce.

Yes, the value of a bitcoin will just go down once its holders sell it cheaper than its current value. Also, bitcoin's value will just go up when its buyer bought it higher than its current value.

Hence, we should not worry about the lose of bitcoin because of mining. It's value won't fall that much.Just hold it, it'll grow up.

I don't know exactly what to do if it happens, but I know that it all is something that doesn't have a bad way to all things. But nonetheless we should use bitcoin for activity is good, indeed the bitcoin has 9 decimal but that will make us get something good thing is when we can benefit. And that's all we can get when holding comes.So, indeed we should always do the promotion of all persons so that the growth of the bitcoin is getting better and more and has a very big advantage. Without growth promotion bitcoin will only end on something a bad thing

Indeed, there is no such mechanism right now, but this doesn't mean that it can't be implemented and without affecting anything done before. Also, I don't see why all previous blocks should be invalidated. You seem to assume that the original transaction that put the money into the wallet (and which also set its lifetime to 50 years) should be invalidated, whereas in fact it will remain valid forever. I talk about a new transaction that would just end its term, if you want me to put it this way. Thereby, there is no point in invalidating any blocks or transactions at all...

And I still can't understand how that could potentially contribute to possible government regulations

I don't think there is any need to do this, why we need 21 million bitcoin exactly if there will be less than 21 million its better for price growth of bitcoin. Nobody really care about lost bitcoins other than the one who have lost private keys of those bitcoin addresses.

< 21 million bitcoin = less supply with high demand = price will sky rocket.

I don't think we have to do anything... Bitcoin have 9 decimals and a lot of units, no matter if some of them are unreachable. It is the price for descentralization.

Whatever happened on why they lost it, we would never know. There's no way of determining if it's just unmoved or forgotten. The beauty of bitcoin is it's decentralized; no one could ever control your money, just you. And it will be just yours. Either you lost access to your wallet or just forgot (that would be sad). There's nothing more you can do. It's just time to move on, and let go. Move forward to new bitcoins.

But, doesn't that take away the entire point of bitcoin as a safe haven? That means people are forced to move their coins every 10 years or so, and keep track of it. Might not sound like a big deal, but it is annoying and if you forget about it, then it's lost forever.

Also another problem is how are you going to distribute the coins? You said that you could use it to finance scientific research, so how will we reach consensus? How will be pick a legitimate scientific research team to invest in? In my opinion all of this requires centralisation, which is against the very idea why bitcoin is created in the first place.

I don't think it will ever become a major problem.

The chance of losing many coins has already dropped a lot since the coins are much more valuable. If something is valuable, you care more about it and run a small risk. In addition, the days of people losing 10000 bitcoin wallets are also over.

Many people don't move their coins a lot. Marking them as public property is stuipid as it forces you to make silly transactions just to keep your coins active.

It is quite simple as is, you own the private key, you control the addresses associated to them.

Very simply, if your variable is met at 50 years, the coins would need to move without a privatekey telling them so.
Basically, your original tx would have stated that if no movement within 50, then selfmove to coin jar or other.
The issue here is that there can be no "selfmove" without another mechanism like a privatekey.
The only way to do that is by a backdoor.

But if we used invalidation as you have stated prior, to move those coins after 50 years, 50 years of unrelated
blocks would all be invalidated. It is not possible to invalidate a specific amount of btc that has already been
deemed valid for over 50 years. After a bitcoin tx has been deemed valid, it can never be invalidated.
To invalidate it would effectively mean that when the miner found those btc, they made an invalid block.
All blocks built upon that invalid block are all then invalid.

Trust me, I think it is not possible to do the invalidation idea.
And the privatekey backdoor one would never been agreed to.

What ever you say but what you are saying is killing the theory of Bitcoin security system. If you are telling that  after 50 yrs that wallet address will become null, if anyone like me itself i have stored my bitcoin in a wallet and did not touched my wallet for 50 years then will it means that my wallet address stored bitcoin will also considered as owner is no more and it will be released without getting my consent then it is called theft, How can you tell that bitcoin address which is not operated for more then 50 yrs will be considered as dead wallet address.

What ever you are telling is not appropriate because then their wont be any difference between bitcoin and fiat currency banking system.

I still can't fathom how that could possibly allow any footing for regulating Bitcoin by the authorities. Let's assume that funds can be forcefully moved without the necessity of possessing the keys. After all, that's what my suggestion comes down to. For example, if some variable associated with the address is set to, say, 50, which should be interpreted in terms of years, after that period of time, coins get moved to another address or just considered as unmined and the transaction(s) which added these coins to that address are marked as invalid in the next block. But that would still have to be confirmed by the whole network, right? So where is the backdoor for regulating Bitcoin here?

Or any backdoor at all, for that matter?

No. If you allow a backdoor around privatekey control, that allows the footing for regulators.

Now, for a person to set up a Will that transfers the bitcoins to their heirs, it will need to be the
direct transfer of paper wallets or etc or a multi-sig transaction with the deceased's lawyer and executor.
It would all be outlined in the Will with all parties being told in advanced and provided the keys to do this
later multi-sig tx after death, as instructed.

In the event that Coinbase held the deceased coins, yes, the heirs would likely need to file paper work with
Coinbase to have those transferred just as stock and bonds would be under normal circumstances.

Satoshi intended that users would be their own banks.
If someone held their coins in thirdparty sites, that is not what Satoshi intended.
If someone held paperwallets or etc, that is what Satoshi intended.
If someone held multi-sig with other parties, that is what Satoshi envisioned.

Since Bitcoin is not regulated and is a p2p currency/asset, it is harder to guarantee the transfer to heirs.
It is the responsibility of the btc holder to make preparations about this issue, obviously prior to their death.

But you first talked about some footing for regulators to control Bitcoin. I thought you referred to authorities requiring to grant these bitcoins to the deceased person's heirs, even despite the fact that it might not be possible. Technically, the authorities through the request of the heirs might still require to transfer the coins if they are in the possession of a web wallet, say, Coinbase

Wouldn't that be against what Satoshi intended as well?

If the individual doesn't prepare for their heirs to receive their coins in the event of
death, then they are lost as Satoshi intended. There is no obligation nor need to
maintain the full 21 million coins. This is not an inflationary system, but dis-inflationary.
Coins being lost forever is not an issue with this type of financial instrument.



You can not "unmine" the bitcoins without destroying the whole chain from when
those btc where placed within a block.
Very simply, when a miner finds a block and takes the coinbase, it is based on rules.
The rule is, you found the block, now only take 12.5 from the coin jar, if you take
more your block is invalidated. The miners follow this rule or else they lose the block
and its coinbase. When a miner takes the 12.5 coinbase, it is transferred to that miners
btc address and included in that block.

If later you wish to "unmine" certain bitcoins within a certain block,
it would cause that block and all blocks that follow to be invalidated since each block is
built based on all prior blocks being valid and their txs being valid. So if you "unmined"
some bitcoins, you are effectively saying prior work was wrong and destroy all those blocks.

The system relies on and is built upon the rule that no bitcoins can be unmined.
If it is allowed, it would destroy everything up to the point of the unmined bitcoin block.

In theory, all 21 million bitcoins currently exist and were placed by Satoshi to be taken over time.
Miners do not create new coins, they are only grabbing from the pile, and at some point, there is
nothing left to grab.

I don't get it. On the other hand, if someone dies (without will and his keys available to his heirs), what to do with his coins which are known to belong to him?


Again, this can be argued

If there is a way to create money (and bitcoins are also created basically out of thin air, let's be honest here), there should be a way to destroy it. As I understand it, the process of creating new bitcoins doesn't involve private keys, which are used to access or move the money. In this way, we could as well expect that the reverse process (let's call it unmining bitcoins) should be as straightforward

It is much more of a complicated situation then you are describing and more than I can articulate.

Simply, to facilitate what you describe would allow a footing for regulators to control Bitcoin.
You need to understand that the only way to transfer is by the privatekey, you are advocating another way.
A way to get around the privatekey, by using a backdoor. Even if it is programmed and placed into the protocol
through consensus, it would brake Bitcoin fundamentally.

Currently, bitcoins can ONLY move by its associated privatekey signing proof of control.
Your proposal would say that after so much time, forget the privatekey, just move without it.
That is very controversial, IMO.