Quote from: FreeMoney on January 14, 2011, 06:28:24 AM

Quote from: ShadowOfHarbringer on January 07, 2011, 09:54:34 AM

Quote from: bitcool on January 07, 2011, 04:36:10 AM

had a back of the envelop calculation: if the loss rate is 10% per annual, it will take 21 years to reach the 1/10 mark, which can be compensated by moving the decimal point one digit to the right. Not too bad indeed.

I seriously doubt that 10% of gold/silver/platinum bullion is lost every year...

Once people understand that bitcoin is a hard money & a commodity, they will protect it with their lives, the same as they do with normal bullion. Therefore, i think that 10% may be probable for the first few years of bitcoin adoption, and when masses understand the power of bitcoin, the loses will fall to 3% or less.

I agree.

Another difference is that when gold or silver are 'lost' it simply means "expensive to recover, we'll get it later when it's easier or when it's more valuable". It's pretty rare for gold to be transmogrified into lead or something, it usually just gets lost in the water to be found later.

This is the case with bitcoin, too--the recovery cost is in the number of cpu cycles required to find the private keys for the old addresses, which gradually becomes cheaper over time for "lost" bitcoins in proportion to available cpu power with the growth of technology(not so for held bitcoins, which can be continually upgraded to a higher key size alongside technological growth).