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After the money supply reaches 21 million, no more new bitcoins will be created, but bitcoins are lost whenever someone loses access to his account. How do they prevent this from causing us to run out of bitcoins? |
The question has been closed for the following reason "The question is answered, right answer was accepted" by SalvorHardin 09 Mar, 17:29
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It can be divided down, like mBTC and uBTC, so they don't have to worry about that. I kinda think of it like paper money and coins. It takes 100 pennies to make a dollar, just like it takes 1000mbtc to make a btc. So if you look at it like that it has more than enough to go around. |
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If Bitcoin gain mainstream value, then this will probably not happen as people will be careful to not lose BitCoins because of crash disk or death. This will happen anyway but slowly compared to the mass of the coins. Not compared to the 21 Millions BTC but to the many more billions of Satoshis. See also: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Lost_coins_can.27t_be_replaced_and_this_is_bad |
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Theoretically, nothing. In practice, however, each bitcoin is divisible into one hundred million separate units, which are called satoshi. In all, there will be 2.1 quadrillion satoshi, which means that there will remain an adequate money supply even as some coins are inevitably lost. Even if only one Bitcoin remained, there would still be 100 million separate units. |
hi @majid83, do you like some answer?