The math says there's virtually zero chance of recovering 'lost' coins (lost meaning the only way to get them back is by guessing), while there's a definite finite chance of losing the coins we do have. Therefore, at some point we'll need something new - granted, maybe far in the future!
Incorrect. It''s simple to add more granularity to Bitcoin. Once the total supply of coins is down to 2.1 million, then we can just add another decimal place and we're back to 21 million units.
Is this true? Like a stock split at 10:1 where everyone suddenly has 10x as many bitcoins? Or as in making the smallest unit 0.1 satoshi?
Dividing the satoshi doesn't change anything I've said.. it just makes the lost coins 10x larger in satoshi magnitude as well. Eventually
all of them will not be in control of
anyone, and the currency will be dead. Don't get me wrong, this is still a long way off, but there's nothing that can be done to recover lost coins. Inflation is probably the only thing that can counter the lost coins, but that's not bitcoin anymore.