If not though, nearly a million out of 17.6 million bitcoins seems like a huge number to be out of circulation, and that's a lower bound (other bitcoin owners have almost certainly died without being able to pass them on). I know that the rate at which bitcoins are awarded slows over time, so it seems like eventually the rate at which bitcoins are lost due to owner death should exceed the rate at which they are created.
How is the long-term state of bitcoin not just a bunch of unrecoverable keys held by dead people?
If you hold Bitcoins it's great. Every lost coin makes all the others more valuable. A true constant/deflationary resource, much more so than even gold.
I happen to just so have a limited supply of cryptographically signed numbers. I'll let you be the first one in on 'em. I'm selling them for $10,000 a piece.
Mcafee is not of sound mind, and definitely not to be taken seriously if anyone has even followed his antics in the absolute loosest sense of the word.
I don't know why the article says it's "hard to know". Mcafee is an attention seeker.
Sloppy journalism from Bloomberg to even cover this.
Also sloppy to assume he must be dead. Someone who is going to invent something like Bitcoin may very well have strong libertarian and perhaps anarchistic political views, it's entirely likely he doesn't care too much about making money himself.
This is how to tank your reputation as a journalistic outlet.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 49.2 ms ] threadIf not though, nearly a million out of 17.6 million bitcoins seems like a huge number to be out of circulation, and that's a lower bound (other bitcoin owners have almost certainly died without being able to pass them on). I know that the rate at which bitcoins are awarded slows over time, so it seems like eventually the rate at which bitcoins are lost due to owner death should exceed the rate at which they are created.
How is the long-term state of bitcoin not just a bunch of unrecoverable keys held by dead people?
Such as?
I don't know why the article says it's "hard to know". Mcafee is an attention seeker.
Sloppy journalism from Bloomberg to even cover this.
Also sloppy to assume he must be dead. Someone who is going to invent something like Bitcoin may very well have strong libertarian and perhaps anarchistic political views, it's entirely likely he doesn't care too much about making money himself.
This is how to tank your reputation as a journalistic outlet.
Press: "Where is he?"
McAfee: "You are looking at him."