What happens when people die or drop their phones in the toilet or otherwise lose private keys, effectively destroying bitcoin over time?
Discussion
Bitcoin doesn't lose value overtime because there isn't any maintenance cost
Bitcoin doesn't lose value over time because the supply cannot be diluted.
These people are contributing to the deflation of Bitcoin.
Yes, and it's permanent, irreversible deflation. What is the endgame of that situation?
If somebody else loses their Bitcoin due to bad key management, you are rewarded by your bitcoin becoming more valuable because you have practiced good key management.
Honestly I think that in the future most normies will custody Bitcoin at their local bank and transact through their banking app. Most people are not cut out for self custody, and banks aren't going to throw up their hands and walk away just because people start using Bitcoin. The banks will coopt Bitcoin. But that won't stop us sovereigns from using Bitcoin as sovereign citizens.
But the fact is that, over time, the currency will permanently deflate.
The people who HODL indefinitely have their currency become more and more valuable (assuming it is widely adopted), while the people who join the system fresh with nothing are chasing after smaller and smaller scraps.
Over time, you have a class of early adopters who have disproportionate control over the economy, simply because they were there first.
...Does this situation sound familiar?
It gives me great hope for the future of humanity that soon the most wealthy people in the world will all have minds grounded in Austrian economics and principles of individual liberty.
"It's bad when a tiny minority control all the wealth except when it's us"
Okay, thanks, that's all I needed to know about you
If you're hoping for an 'equitable' distribution of wealth, that will never happen and should never happen.
Nope, not equitable, but it sure seems awful that someone with the same intelligence, who happened to be born later, should be enslaved to the psychopaths who own everything.
And when these ultra-wealthy bitcoin HODLers die and their kids inherit their wallets, do you think they will hold to the same moral standards as their parents?
Do you not see the parallels between the current system and the utopian vision you're advocating for?
The early adopters don't have any more control. Many of them sell/spend and otherwise transfer their wealth as they grow older.
The key is trading your time/wealth for sound money that can't be debased. Thus over time your share of the soundest money that is protecting your time/wealth is growing.