Quote from: Febo on September 28, 2014, 01:09:18 PM

Quote from: Campsis on September 27, 2014, 08:37:32 PM

Hi guys,

As you may already be aware that there are people who simply lose bitcoins, and there is quite a lof of them!

For example: This guy lost his hard drive with 100k btc on it, another guy lost paper wallet with 30k btc on it and so on...

Now the question that i'm asking myself? Do they stay stuck in blockchain? Because if yes, than i see only about 8million bitcoins in circulation by the time they are mined..

Of course they stay on blackchain. And with time when computers will get stronger, they will be companies, that will search for this long lost wallets. Same as are now companies, that search fro sunken ships from oceans. Pulling them out and sell their Gold or other things to pay costs and divide profit. So some coins on today lost wallets are not lost forever.

I think it would be disastrous if it ever happens, it would simply mean that wallet are not secure enough and people confidence in bitcoin would drop. If a vulnerability is found, we can just hardfork and go on a new algorithm and the old wallets would not be cracked.