Post
Topic
Board Beginners & Help
Re: What Happens To Lost Bitcoins?
by
Kazimir
on 05/09/2012, 23:03:33 UTC
Now off to study the implications of divisibility
Consider this: (quote comes from another thread, where somebody was worried that the limit of 21 million bitcoins that can ever exist, would be insufficient)

forget the "21 million". This number is completely arbitrary, it doesn't matter! Current bitcoin clients support up to 8 decimals, and this can be increased further whenever the need arises.

Would the total amount of gold available in the world ever become insufficient? No! Cause if there aren't enough kilograms, people would deal with grams, or milligrams, etc.
And unlike gold, which can only be divided up to individual atoms (which would be impossible to handle in practice), bitcoins can be divided with unlimited precision, and paying 2 nanoBTC is exactly as convenient as paying 2 BTC)

So, forget the 21 million limit. There might have been just as well 800 trillion coins, or just 5. By definition, there is an infinite amount of units available.