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)
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)
That would be a very bad idea, especially when some people depend on Bitcoin as a retirement fund. They just buy and store BTC without touching it for years. Would you imagine the network claiming back the "lost" coins from a "retirement wallet"? It would be a complete disaster! Folks at the Bitcoin SV camp proposed it, and it turned out to be a huge failure. Even Satoshi said that lost coins are a "donation" to the community.
The more coins lost, the scarcer BTC will get. You may think the supply of 21 million coins is not enough for people worldwide, but the fact is that BTC is divisible to 8 units. So there are essentially "quadrillions" of satoshis on the BTC blockchain. I'd leave Bitcoin as is instead of trying to add new features that will "break it" in the long run. Who knows how far will it go? Just my opinion
