Subject: Re: [bitcoindev] [BIP Proposal] Proof-of-Activity Reclamation (PoAR)

From: Javier Mateos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2025 16:13:03 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Donald and everyone!
First of all, I want to thank you for the effort and work put into this 
proposal, wich addressses a complex and important topic. Howewer, to my 
understanding, the proposal clearly lacks solid foundations, and although 
it tries to anticipate some objections, the responses offered are either 
insufficient or even counterproductive.

1) The issue of miner incentives is overstated
The last bitcoin won’t be mined until the year 2140, which means we’re 
still more than 100 years away. Justifying such a structural change today 
based on a concern that lies completely outside our current technical, 
social, and economic horizon is an exaggeration. As rewards decrease, 
Bitcoin has already shown a natural tendency to substitute them with 
transaction fees, without this causing any systemic collapse.

2) Artificial scarcity is not a problem (it’s part of the design)
Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million satoshis per unit, which provides 
more than enough granularity to operate even if BTC reaches astronomical 
values. If 1 BTC were worth more than 1 million u$s, each satoshi would be 
worth over a cent. If necessary, an extension of decimals could be 
considered in the future (as is already done in Lightning with 
millisatoshis), without altering the fundamental rules.

The idea that “lost value must be recovered” to maintain liquidity 
completely ignores the fact that in a deflationary economy, the loss of 
units doesn’t necessarily reduce system functionality—it increases the 
value of the remaining units. In the words of Satoshi Nakamoto himself:
“Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of 
it as a donation to everyone.” (I clarify that i do not necessarily 
intended to be canonical)

3) The confiscation risk doesn't disappear just because it's framed as 
"reauthentication."
The argument that “if you can’t move your coins for 20 years, it’s 
indistinguishable from abandonment” is not only weak, but profoundly 
dangerous. What happens if coins are immobilized as part of an inheritance, 
a trust, or simply due to personal choice?

Peter Todd summed it up perfectly:
“If you want to argue for actually redistributing coins rather than just 
creating new ones out of thin air - for whatever reason - you need to 
justify why you want to risk confiscating coins that were not in fact lost.”

The fact that the current system can’t distinguish between lost and 
non-lost coins doesn’t justify defaulting to confiscation. In fact, that 
limitation is deliberate: Bitcoin is based on the presumption of individual 
sovereignty, not on a registry of “legitimate activity.” Why should I be 
required to spend or move my BTC if I don’t want to? The very idea of 
Bitcoin is that *I have full freedom to decide what to do with my funds. *

4) Bitcoin does not need to "reactivate" value to sustain its economy.
The assumption that a prolonged decrease in supply would destabilize the 
system has not been empirically demonstrated. Growing demand, combined with 
coin loss, creates deflationary pressure, yes—but that doesn’t prevent 
circulation or absolutely disincentivize spending. Bitcoin’s economy has 
already adapted to this over time without artificial intervention.

Sincerely,
Javier Mateos

El miércoles, 16 de julio de 2025 a las 18:05:40 UTC-3, Peter Todd escribió:

> On Tue, Jul 15, 2025 at 03:02:04PM -0700, Murch wrote:
> > Hi Donald and all,
> > 
> > The idea of recycling dormant coins is one that has made the rounds 
> several
> > times before, including in the form of the "Bitcoin Dormant Recovery
> > Proposal" just a couple months ago:
> > https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1852
> > 
> > I don’t have the impression that the idea has been particularly popular, 
> and
> > as BIPs go, this one is missing crucial parts, e.g.:
> > 
> > • A more comprehensive motivation based on thorough analysis how
> > redistributing dormant coins improves the system as this constitutes a
> > departure of the status quo for the supply schedule
>
> Worth noting that from an economic point of view redistributing genuinely 
> lost
> coins, and creating coins out of thin air, is essentially the same thing:
> either way you are introducing coins into the active economy that were
> previously not in economic circulation. In both cases you are diluting the
> value of non-lost coins by increasing the total active supply, decreasing 
> their
> purchasing power proportionally.
>
> If you want to argue for actually redistributing coins rather than just
> creating new ones out of thin air - for whatever reason - you need to 
> justify
> why you want to risk confiscating coins that were not in fact lost.
>
> -- 
> https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org
>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Bitcoin Development Mailing List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email-masked].
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/0ea9abf6-abe7-4287-aa6a-90d204147bedn%40googlegroups.com.