TheyHODL on Nostr: But how long is “Forever” really? The life expectancy of Bitcoin is ...

But how long is “Forever” really?

The life expectancy of Bitcoin is potentially…. forever.
Well, at least forever from the perspective of lasting as long as civilised society on planet earth. If we avoid the obvious outcome of killing each other through our continuously polarised societal fractions, in some sort of crescendo akin to a Shakespearian tragedy then, forever, is relative to human consciousness. Bitcoin may die shortly after, when the last node running confirms the last block broadcast by the solo miner crunching the numbers. But that aside, it could be around as long as the human race is present on this spinning blue ball we call home.

And if this is the case, then in a 1000 years time, the current distribution of bitcoin private keys today is like pouring sand and grit through a series of sieves that have ever shrinking holes, and we are only on the 5th epoch.

I do not believe that either the existing lost keys, the lost keys yet to come, nor the targeted destruction of key locations and holders is even close to being priced in.

Bitcoin fades away

The 19m coins mined so far, an estimated 2–4m have been considered lost forever or abandoned forever. This time I really mean forever. No deep sea searches or advancement in cryptographic brute force shall ever find these lost coins, they are gone, they are really lost, they no longer exist. They will echo through time however, there will be a constant record of their final resting place broadcast every 10minutes. But for all intent and purpose, they have…. evaporated.

In the early days these errors in key management yielded large volume of lost coins. The coin volume for individual errors gradually reduces as we move through the epoches of time, but they are as constant and frequent as the early days and will continue for bitcoin’s life. Individuals may even channel their inner Egyptian Pharaoh and take their coins with them to the grave whether intentionally or not. But the sieves of time will take more and more bitcoins along with it.

21m coins is a meme, the reality is far far fewer and this will forever be decreasing.

Bitcoin hates centralisation

The honey pots being created as we begin the journey towards institutional adoption is something people have not considered. What if we wake up tomorrow and coinbase has lost all access to its private keys? Inconceivable you cry! Well…. Forever is a long time remember. One day they will screw up or one day they’ll be a target to geopolitical forces that want those keys gone. We could see vast stashes of coins evaporate and the coins remaining will vastly increase in value as a consequence.

This is why honey pots are easy targets and bitcoin is happy for those consolidated UTX0s to be victims, because ultimately it hates centralisation. What will be left will be the widely distributed holders or smaller corporations that have maintained better key management or are too insignificant to be targeted.

Compared to gold… more gold is constantly being mined, more ways to source gold are being created (water and asteroids mining), gold supply is always going up and to the right. Bitcoin supply will soon, if not already begin going down and to the right.
And the conclusion is, that Bitcoin evaporation is neither understood or even close to being priced in.

Happy Hodling

https://medium.com/@TheyHODL/bitcoin-evaporation-is-not-priced-in-e7dbb6366c1b