Thread

1. seymon · 1789644245 · focus · HN ↗

   I hope they still have the private key.

   1. osigurdson · 1789648222 · focus · HN ↗

      It is an interesting fact about Bitcoin in general. There are 21M tokens in total AND some percentage are lost every year. Run this simulation long enough and there will be very few active Bitcoins remaining.

      1. Roark66 · 1789649066 · focus · HN ↗

         Seems pretty silly to build in deflation into a currency. It incentivises putting your money in a mattress for 100 years.

         1. benenrjdnz · 1789649507 · focus · HN ↗

            Deflation is a good thing, it rewards delayed gratification. Those evil Keynesians have convinced the world a little bit of inflation is good. It isn’t. Losing purchasing power on your money is a bug.

            Nothing wrong with putting money under a mattress for 100y if the value of money is not evaporating.

            For most of human history the money was stable. It’s the disasters of 20th century wars that eroded the value, and 21st century lack of monetary discipline that keeps driving it down now.

            1. ngruhn · 1789650151 · focus · HN ↗

               It's nice when I do it. Not so nice when everyone else does it. If sitting on the money has better returns than running a supermarket, why run a supermarket? Any investment has to beat deflation. Why hire people? In fact maybe I should fire everyone to hold on to more capital and spend as little as possible...

               1. darkwater · 1789652255 · focus · HN ↗

                  > If sitting on the money has better returns than running a supermarket, why run a supermarket?

                  First of all, because not everyone starts with inherited wealth. Also because ideally running a supermarket should give you more money even in a deflationary world. Worst thing is that you gain less money on day N+100 vs day N, but it does not mean you lose money or stop gaining it.

                  1. MisterMunchkin · 1789656067 · focus · HN ↗

                     But a deflationary system rewards inherited wealth. It's a pyramid scheme where the person at the top splits their big piles up into smaller piles, selling them to newer people, who then sell their smaller piles to newer people...

                     So you'd be working for 0.000000000000000001 coins per day at the amazon warehouse, while Bezos has 500000 coins because he was born with them. There would never be a way for you to get 500000 coins, because there are only 20m coins in existence.

                     1. osigurdson · 1789737114 · focus · HN ↗

                        The easiest thing for people to do in that situation is just create another Bitcoin. The person that has the 500K original Bitcoin is free to trade with themselves. This is why Bitcoin is much more of a social network than an algorithm.

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