Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Will occasional losses of bitcoin wallets limit available maximum bitcoins?
by
joe
on 29/12/2010, 09:56:14 UTC
The system at the very least needs a way to liberate lost coins.
The system does not need to liberate lost coins.

First, there's no solution because there's no way to know they're actually lost. A bank could be holding some coins as collateral for hundreds of years and never touch them.

Secondly, there is no reason to do it. It just doesn't matter whether coins get lost. The price of the coins will naturally rise as the market realizes there are fewer coins that will "budge" to higher demand.

Thirdly, the U.S. likewise does not care about lost coins. If a federal reserve note (dollar bill) get mutilated or destroyed beyond recognition, the government never does anything to redistribute that lost dollar.