Quote from: bitcoin50k on February 27, 2014, 03:08:44 AM

Quote from: Peter R on February 27, 2014, 03:05:21 AM

Quote from: matt4054 on February 27, 2014, 02:58:48 AM

Quote from: Peter R on February 27, 2014, 02:45:47 AM

And here we are today. If this theory is correct, there are 750,000 less bitcoins in existence than what everyone thought.

I agree (in "speculating mode") with most of your post, but I fail to understand the 750KBTC LOST COINS theory (you're not the first to come up with it). If they were stolen, what makes you think they are destroyed? I would believe the thieves have secured and/or resold them already, so they are still in circulation, not destroyed.

In the theory I just posted, the 750,000 coins aren't destroyed. It's just that the market has been behaving as though there were 750,000 more coins than there actually were since 2011. The "effective" monetary base of bitcoin would have just shrunken by 750,000 BTC.

I apologize, I'm lost! Where the f#$% do these 750k BTC go?

Lets say 750k coins were sent to gox over the years.

750k were hacked, so the exchange really had a 0 balance.

However, those who had coins on the site still showed balances in their accounts, because when trading you arent actually transacting BTC every time, just numbers in your account. So, the 750k coins that existed still show up in everyones accounts.

Now imagine the hackers coins make it back to gox, all 750k of them. Now there are 1.5m coins on the site, even though only 750k exist. Simple enough?