<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 15 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>OK so this guy lost a quarter of a billion dollars because he forgot his BitCoin password:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="https://heraldsheets.com/former-ripple-cto-stefan-thomas-cannot-access-his-bitcoin-wallet-containing-7002-btc-worth-231-milion/">https://heraldsheets.com/former-ripple-cto-stefan-thomas-cannot-access-his-bitcoin-wallet-containing-7002-btc-worth-231-milion/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>This brings up an interesting question. The value of currency is inherently controlled by supply and demand. We see what is happening to demand: plenty of people want some of that, for perfectly understandable reasons. Now we know that 7000 bitcoins are permanently out of circulation forever. That looks to me like it would increase every other bitcoin’s value because the demand didn’t change, only the supply did.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Surely there are plenty of others who have a bitcoin purse behind a password they can’t recall. And plenty of bitcoin holders who mined a few of these back in the day, then pretty much forgot all about them, treating it like a game, and now can’t recover them or don’t know what happened to them. We mighta treated all the bitcoins as if they had the potential to go into circulation when really an unknown fraction of them might have been lost by something as simple as people not telling anyone their password (understandable) then dying unexpectedly.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Alternative: a prole with a few thousand bitcoins could go on the news and tell everyone that he forgot his password, quarter of a billion BC presumably lost, price goes up, he sells short, miraculously remembers his password, sells his BCs, covers his short, makes a buttload.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>That trick might work only once, but as far as I know, no one has done it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p></div></body></html>