Quote from: Febo on Today at 03:25:11 PM

Quote from: bitebits on Today at 04:33:10 AM

There are currently about 18,375 million bitcoins in circulation. Think I read about four million bitcoins are considered lost, including the estimated one million bitcoins owned by Satoshi that never moved.

That means that there is a real stock of 14,375 million bitcoins. And with a block reward of now 6.25 bitcoins, there are 328,500 new bitcoins mined per year. This puts the inflation of Bitcoin for the next 365 days at around 2.8%.

Yes people tend to forget this. But you made a mistake in your calculation it is 2.3% and not 2.8%. However you look at it, it is very close to Gold. Bitcoins future is scarce.

Thanks for checking Febo, I intended to type 2.28% instead ((328,500 / 14,375,000) x 100 = 2.28%).

Of course the number of lost bitcoins is just a guesstimate, maybe even a bit high which exaggerates the above calculated current Bitcoin inflation. Over time we can with more certainty say how many bitcoins can really be considered lost (not moved for 50 years for example).

Private keys will however continue to be permanently lost, contrary to gold: Don’t think much gold still gets sunk to the bottom of the ocean nowadays, and even than it might be retrieved one day. Same for the gold used in electronics and teeth, it all gets recycled.

Bitcoin’s current inflation is somewhere between 1.78% and 2.28%, it does not matter much anymore. I think the third halving has a big impact on how Bitcoin is viewed as a potential store of value.