Wouldn't it be better if lost coins were reintroduced into the network after a fixed span of inactivity?
I suppose the first thing one would say no for, would be by virtue of bitcoin's acclaimed deflationary property. This said, I believe it is much more important, especially in the longest term, that bitcoin keeps its property of conservation of energy, that is, having a fixed quantity of money ever available. By losing coins, instead, and by having them unrecoverable, we have not a fixed quantity of money, rather a decreasing one, which is why we call bitcoin deflationary.
What would happen if we would make so that coins with 109 years of inactivity would be reintroduced into the network?
I see this having some positive effects:
- decreased impact of hereditary monopoly
- incentive to let the currency flow
- canceled the future necessity to increase the number of decimals for 1 BTC (very-long term perspective: too many coins have been lost, thus the necessity to further subdivide a coin)
ummm what?? Just randomly deciding to take other people's Bitcoin from their own addresses and redisburse it?!? Even if a wallet is inactive for generations maybe its the long term savings of a family and they haven't touched it and just keep passing it down. It would be insane to unilaterally decide its okay to just take Bitcoin from addresses.
I can't believe the first objection you thought people would have with this would be something to do with deflation, and not to do with the fact that you're saying you think people's bitcoin should be forfeit if you simply hold on to it for too long!
And in a completely insane world where we wanted Bitcoin to be awful and made this happen, how would it even be redistributed? Who would decide the distribution, how would it be decided?
God, occasionally people come up with just horrendous ideas to change Bitcoin for no good reason, this definitely is on that list. No offense lol