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

From: Murch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2025 15:02:04 -0700

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
• Specification of the redistribution rate and mechanism
• Specification of the out-of-band activity proof mechanism and how this 
out-of-band information would be introduced into the Bitcoin system as 
consensus critical information, and discussion of alternative approaches 
and why this is the correct approach
• Rationale for reclaiming dormant coins at halvings rather than UTXOs 
expiring after a fixed number of blocks
• An analysis of the backward compatibility, including especially the 
discussion of how to conduct this hard fork

In its current state, I would consider this document premature for a 
pull request and would encourage further development. Generally, the 
arguments and reasoning used in the motivation and rationale will need a 
lot more work to make a hard fork and a change in the economic paradigm 
palatable.

Cheers,
Murch

On 2025-07-10 15:55, 'Donald Dienst' via Bitcoin Development Mailing 
List wrote:
> Dear Bitcoin developers,
>
> I would like to propose a new BIP titled "Proof-of-Activity 
> Reclamation (PoAR)," which aims to address the long-term economic 
> effects of lost and abandoned UTXOs.
>
> This proposal introduces a fully automated and rule-based mechanism to 
> gradually recycle coins that have been provably inactive for over 20 
> years. These coins are returned to the undistributed pool and slowly 
> reintroduced via future block rewards—extending miner incentives while 
> respecting the 21 million BTC cap.
>
> You can view the full proposal here:
> https://gist.github.com/Brandchatz/56c39d289db9e56190c13922850815b8
>
> I welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and critiques.
>
> Best regards,
> Donald Dienst
> [email-masked] --
> 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/a186c724-eef7-4964-9aba-85ae9cce2249n%40googlegroups.com 
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/bitcoindev/a186c724-eef7-4964-9aba-85ae9cce2249n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

-- 
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/634ea7a6-1695-46e8-a337-1fef1ac17a66%40murch.one.