Quote from: je_bailey on June 22, 2011, 08:59:54 PM

And the further out I extrapolate the greater the discrepancy may be, but I can never see a great enough of a discrepancy to be concerned. Because I mentally always come back to the thought that the market will adjust.

It is guaranteed that the number of total number of lost Bitcoins tomorrow will be greater than or equal to the total number of lost Bitcoins today, until the end of time, or until there are no more Bitcoins. There is no point in disputing it. We can argue all day long about what the rate of loss will be, but we'd only be guessing.

We also have no idea about what the future holds for methods of saving wealth, but let's assume that there will at least be the following places in which your wealth can be stored:

Material items: land, gold, products, etc.
Currencies
Securities

If Bitcoins are successful, then we can assume the following:

some individuals will store none of their wealth in them
some individuals will store some of their wealth in them
some individuals will store most of their wealth in them

Based on the discussion here, it should be clear that the chance of the Bitcoin supply suddenly and rapidly increasing by a huge amount relative to its perceived supply is much greater in the future than it is now. Given that, the repercussions are obvious: if such an event occurred, Bitcoins will be worth much less. In my second bulleted list, it should be obvious which group will be unaffected, and which group will be wiped out.

Given that the third group in the list will be wiped out, logically, they won't exist, if they are prudent. From that, it follows that over time, the notion that Bitcoins are a prudent means of storing wealth will lose traction.