Quote from: tsr on July 08, 2010, 05:33:36 AM

Hi all,
i'm pretty new to bitcoin but already using it and also experimenting with new ideas/code. Great concept!

Anyway i wonder what happens with lost coins?
Like when some people with many coins lose their wallet file.
Are they lost forever, and worst for the whole system? Since the generation of the coins are limited as i have read, are those lost coins regenerated at some point too?

So when many people lose their files, maybe through a terrible bug.. well go figure.

Can somebody please explain what would happen and if there are already methods to prevent or something(except backing up, but it's not always possible, e.g. a bad government takes your computer..).
Ok, in RL life, when you lose money it's also forever lost(when noone finds it). But since in BC it's a limited generation of new coins it looks different i think, or am i missing something?
Maybe one solution would be that the network will also forget about those coins when the original node/node with that wallet/ID haven't connected for a very very long time(maybe ~40, ~100 years? on the other hand it might be bad for descent to your child who will knew about your "wallet file" very late etc.) and let's the network regenerate those coins.

Well, i'm not really sure how this is working yet, but just thought about this. Maybe someone can explain/think about this who has more knowledge of bitcoin/it's economics.

Thank you.

I dont think that bitcoin will ever be lost or will ever be faded away because I strongly believe that bitcoin is very sustainable crypto currency and it will going to last for further many decades. And if we look at the past of bitcoin since year 2008 , bitcoin has made a great success, from the valuation of 10₹ to current valuation of ₹ 400000 , the success simply indicated by these increased valuation and I believe that this will further success more and will surely end up to be currency of the world.