But in the long run Bitcoin is deflationary by the amount of coins lost.
Has it really come to this?... So far, the "coins lost" argument is out to be the best of all GOLD 2.0 arguments that have ever been brought up on this forum.
I think about 1 million coins is already lost, when they were worth like nothing.
It's difficult to tell a number, but I believe that about 0.5-1% of coins are lost every year due to forgotten passwords, burned machines, unspendable small amounts that are forgotten and so on.
Once the mining doesn't produce a lot of coins anymore that is quite a bit of growth for all other coins.