Quote from: HandcraftedBreads on March 04, 2023, 05:19:01 PM

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 well-known 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 available, rather a decreasing one, which is why we call bitcoin deflationary.

What would happen if we would make so that coins with 131 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)

What if the government takes over your assets without your approval? just because you don't have relatives or children who use/develop these assets or are going to inherit these assets? Are you willing that the assets that you have worked so hard to acquire and collect are simply taken over just because you let them go, maybe because you have died or have no heirs? To be honest, I personally am not willing that the assets that I have collected are just taken over. Just let these assets be neglected because it is my right to let them be like that, even though some people say that it is a shame that these assets are neglected, but that is not their right to comment on other people's assets. So I strongly disapprove of long abandoned/lost Bitcoins being reintroduced to the network for whatever reason. Just let the Bitcoin sit in those wallets because it's not our right.