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I mined about 50BTC years ago (when it took around 1 day CPU time), but a constantly deflating currency seemed like a dumb idea so I deleted it. It still seems

by okasaki 13y ago

I mined about 50BTC years ago (when it took around 1 day CPU time), but a constantly deflating currency seemed like a dumb idea so I deleted it. It still seems like a dumb idea, but now I wish I hadn't.

the_watcher 13y ago
Wait, you just deleted 50 BTC? That was possible?
- gus_massa 13y ago
  Actually, he hasn’t deleted the 50 BC. They are still there but they are trapped. He only deleted the only copy of the key to transfer them, so those BC will be trapped there “forever”. Actually it’s possible to brute-force search for the key and make the BC free, and transfer them. But with the same method it’s possible to steal BC. The brute-force method is just too slow, and would require a few thousands or perhaps millions of years. (I don’t remember the exact estimation.) With the help of the Moor’s law and some advance breaking the cryptographic security measures, this can happen sooner, but this would be a problem for every BC user.
  - gregburd 13y ago
    I think it's this facet of Bitcoin that's going to end up causing problems in the not too distant future. There will be an ever increasing number of "trapped" coins, BTC that belongs to someone who has abandoned it leaving it unused and thereby lowering the liquidity of the currency. A potential solution would be to incorporate demurrage, which gradually reduces the value of currency the longer it's held, into the BTC algorithms. Essentially by encouraging the holders of a currency to use that currency you'd a) create a more fluid market and b) remove trapped value in some fixed amount of time. If you wanted to maintain a pool of BTC for a long time you'd simply cycle it between two addresses faster than the decay rate so that it's value wouldn't decay.
    - wmf 13y ago
      There are trillions of satoshis total, so even if most of them are lost there should still be billions left for people to use. By analogy, a certain amount of the world's gold has been lost but people still use it as a store of value.
- jjcm 13y ago
  Very possible. I was in the same boat as parent - I set up my all of my school's lab computers to mine. Ended up with quite a lot of BTC, which I didn't bother backing up since they weren't worth anything at the time. Needless to say when BTC bubbled I was kicking myself.

by okasaki 13y ago

the_watcher 13y ago

Wait, you just deleted 50 BTC? That was possible?

gus_massa 13y ago
Actually, he hasn’t deleted the 50 BC. They are still there but they are trapped. He only deleted the only copy of the key to transfer them, so those BC will be trapped there “forever”. Actually it’s possible to brute-force search for the key and make the BC free, and transfer them. But with the same method it’s possible to steal BC. The brute-force method is just too slow, and would require a few thousands or perhaps millions of years. (I don’t remember the exact estimation.) With the help of the Moor’s law and some advance breaking the cryptographic security measures, this can happen sooner, but this would be a problem for every BC user.
- gregburd 13y ago
  I think it's this facet of Bitcoin that's going to end up causing problems in the not too distant future. There will be an ever increasing number of "trapped" coins, BTC that belongs to someone who has abandoned it leaving it unused and thereby lowering the liquidity of the currency. A potential solution would be to incorporate demurrage, which gradually reduces the value of currency the longer it's held, into the BTC algorithms. Essentially by encouraging the holders of a currency to use that currency you'd a) create a more fluid market and b) remove trapped value in some fixed amount of time. If you wanted to maintain a pool of BTC for a long time you'd simply cycle it between two addresses faster than the decay rate so that it's value wouldn't decay.
  - wmf 13y ago
    There are trillions of satoshis total, so even if most of them are lost there should still be billions left for people to use. By analogy, a certain amount of the world's gold has been lost but people still use it as a store of value.
jjcm 13y ago
Very possible. I was in the same boat as parent - I set up my all of my school's lab computers to mine. Ended up with quite a lot of BTC, which I didn't bother backing up since they weren't worth anything at the time. Needless to say when BTC bubbled I was kicking myself.