Another idea: if for one year no transaction happened on an address, the amount could be automatically transferred to a pool from which the miners gets paid. This would require that the user sends some update transaction regularly to reset the one year counter, but would prevent that too many lost addresses accumulate over a long time. And wallet software could automate this. Only for cold storage it needs to be done manually once a year.
What is it about oxymorons and bitcoin? On the one hand we're told to HODL, on the other hand not a day goes by where some poster suggests we should STEAL all the bitcoins 'neglected' ( in COLD HODL STORAGE ); Funny how people want it both ways,
1.) Don't sell your btc, HODL and keep the price rising
2.) If you do HODL, and don't churn your BTC daily, yearly, monthly ( just like a gov bank ), then some good MINER ( +90% china ) has the right to re-claim,aka steal that btc
An outside observer would tell you that the Powers that Be, want to have it both ways, they don't want you to sell, but they also reserve the right to steal from you, that what they told you to HODL
In summary, that's why this request will always get shutdown, the notion of BURYING your GOLD for ten+ years and returning to the same site and digging up your GOLD is the very reason why BTC was created. The idea that some jackass (MINER) can reclaim your public 'gold' cuz you weren't around is just PROOF that most ppl in the BTC community don't care one nil about the original SATOSHI PLAN for btc.
...
Lastly, roll your own BTC block chain, that's why there is already +2,000 BTC clones,.... DO-IT, do it today and frequently;
lots of good papers written on the limitations of BTC blockchain, and they all say the same thing, if you want to be de-centralized, then you can never hope to have more than 30 trans/sec ( currently 7 ), or a block larger than 4MB; or a clip short than 10 seconds ( currently 10 minutes )
[ VISA does what 10k trans/sec?? BTC will never be a VISA, BTC is a bank for rich ppl just accept it ]
It's probably GOOD that BTC can never support high transaction rate, this means it can NEVER be a back-bone for 'TRADING', which means that day-traders will have to find another racket
BTC is already HIGHLY-COMPRESSED, there is not much more that can be squeezed out of a block;