Useful input - surely if the coins haven't been touched in 100 years it can't be counted as stealing
Yes it is still stealing.
- the way I look at it is that at the beginning, before most people here had even heard of bitcoin, people tried it for a while didn't really see it going anywhere and subsequently deleted/lost/no longer have access to wallet.dat with potentially 100's/1000's of coins.
This is exactly why it is stealing. You are not only stealing from the original owner of the coins. You are also stealing from every other bitcoin owner on the planet. Why? Because our coins are more valuable because of all the lost coins. If those lost coins start circulating again our coins become slightly less valuable for it.
But does it actually reduce the value? You could run the bitcoin network of 1 bitcoin, you would just have to keep making it smaller denominations. Likewise if you just 'lose' coins surely you get to a point where you just make it a smaller demoniation and the end state hasn't changed?
I don't foresee adding the lost coins back in, in 100? years time making a significant difference? if it was put to a vote? everyone agreed. Would it really affect the price? especially if you limited the amount of coins that could be bought back in per block?
Where do you stop then? First bring dormant coins back into circulation. Then start issuing more coins beyond the 21 million hard limit. Then start issuing unlimited coins based on votes/central bank of bitcoin/government fiat/religious fiat whatever. Pretty soon bitcoin turns into just another currency.
This is a slippery slope.