Sleeping beauty Bitcoin wallets wake up after 14 years to the tune of $2B

Personally I think that this can be considered on the "bug" side of Bitcoin's finite number coins: if, over time, they are lost, then there's a smaller quantity† of currency that is useable to actually do stuff with.

This can make the 'rate of deflation' that occurs worse:

* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deflationary_spiral

* https://isps.yale.edu/news/blog/2014/06/the-perils-of-bitcoi...

* https://crypto.bi/deflationary/

† I am aware of satoshis.

When I listen to Bitcoin discussions, one of the advantages people bring up is that there is a limited number of it and you can’t just “print” more.

Considering this, while it is true that all this makes deflation worse, I’d assume most bitcoin hodlers would not mind this.

> When I listen to Bitcoin discussions, one of the advantages people bring up is that there is a limited number of it and you can’t just “print” more.

Which can limit economic growth. When money was based the amount of gold available, there were long periods of economic stagnation because of liquidity issues:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bullion_Famine

The stagnation only ended when new sources of shiny rocks were found (California; New World).

I find it a dumb idea what whether or not people can get credit to start/expand businesses would be dependent of solving math problems. Yes, credit creation can be "too easy" and become a problem, but making it "too hard" (or physically/mathematically impossible) is even more dumb.