Lost coins is unquantifiable. What if we start basing assumptions on what coins we think are "lost" only to later find out those coins weren't lost after all?

isn't the point of fee to keep the network alive? we have enough time to build the value, so by the time fee will be crucial for mining, they would have a very high value, and miners would keep mining without problem

Reducing the subsidy to 0 is good because it reduces the number of variables and potential problems. If you decide to continue the subsidy, then how do we know if its value is good for Bitcoin or bad for Bitcoin. There are problems right now that would be eliminated if there were no subsidy, (e.g. empty blocks).

On the other hand, off-chain transactions (such as lightning network) don't pay fees but still depend on the security of the block chain. In the future, if the majority of transactions are off-chain and don't pay fees, then the security of the transactions will be in jeopardy. One way of reducing the problem might be to keep a subsidy.

yeah, probably it's better to look for what the meaning of lost coin, what the effect, where it goes, or at least we know how exactly we lost the coins.

I can see the benefit of small, infinite inflation but Bitcoin should stay capped at 21m. That's one of, if not the most important features of Bitcoin and it should stay this way even if it's clear that BTC would work better uncapped.

That being said, if at some point vast majority decide to remove the cap and fork, then there's not much anyone can do about it.

I wasn't aiming to hit and maintain the 21 mill coins really. 

More so a very small inflation rate, .1%, shoot, .01% just to help miners keep mining in 20ish years.


A rate of inflation so small that the lost coins per year would dwarf it.


At this point I think it will always be impossible to know the exact amount of coins in circulation. 


Perhaps a min pay out of .001 BTC. 

Just something I have been thinking about for some time.  I see the risk in changing the payout structure as if it is changed once people get nervous it can change again :S..

Perhaps that merg mining idea is the best answer.

The price probably will take care of that. Right now, halving coming, bitcoin is pumping hard and will keep that way till ~700-800$, then might have a lil drop to 600$.
That way, even with half reward miners will still have the same value(not bitcoin, but in USD for example).

Half reward and twice the price sounds ok.

This idea has been discussed hundreds of times in the past.  In fact I would say it is the most often presented idea to "fix Bitcoin" over the years.

The bottom line is that anyone can fork Bitcoin at any time for any reason they want.  This is the most common idea, to remove the cap.

Once you fork for this reason (or any other) it is no longer Bitcoin - it is an alt coin.  Everyone that wants to continue the cap will continue on the Bitcoin protocol just fine.  Everyone that want to use the newly created alt coin will use it until it falls to the wayside and loses all value just like a vast majority of all alt coins do.

Let's get the our terminology straight:  If 100% agree with a change and follow it then it is a change, not a fork.  A fork will imply that some percentage of people follow the protocol change and the rest do not.  Do you really think anyone is running the protocol as it was before the two changes you describe above?  No, those were/are changes that everyone followed.

What is described in this thread would be a very controversial change that would not be followed by 100% of the miners and nodes.  I do claim that as long as there is some percentage of holdouts running the capped protocol and calling it Bitcoin - that is Bitcoin since the cap is one of the most fundamental parameters of the protocol.  The portion of miners and nodes that split off to form a cap-less alt coin protocol would not be Bitcoin as long as there is a viable Bitcoin (capped) protocol running.  That is what I meant, that is my story, and I am sticking to it.

This PoW won't last forever IMO
PoS coins are the future, but as it currently is, BitCoin is the gold.