People keep saying 21 million bitcoins. There are a significant percentage lost forever.
21 million / 0.00000001 = how many bitcoins can "exist".
So considering that there's no real blocking factors in how many bitcoins can be distributed, why does it matter if some get lost?
The value of the coins are hardly affected now that such a high level of adoption has occurred. Those coins weren't even in previous circulation in any marketplaces affecting prices.
By an ever decreasing significancy as the market cap expands and BTC of value are held onto with care.
To your first part, why would 1 BTC lost when it's worth $1000 have a greater significance than 1 BTC lost when it's worth $1,000,000?
EDIT: Unless you mean any individual wallet's share of BTC is likely to be less, in which case the odds of losing as much BTC in a single incident is significantly reduced.
Exactly. The only common narrative of these lost BTC is an earlier ignorance by the owner and a rapid increase in price. That is the only reason "millions" get lost. Once prices stabilizes via increased market cap and average BTC/owner is reduced, this narrative stops being prevalent and large scale.
With hyper-deflation, spending $1,000,000 in the morning would be a losing proposition because by nightfall you might buy the same good for $1,000.
Both suffer severe problems, economically, but who loses and who wins changes. The matrix is something like this:
Inflation| Buyer | Seller |
---------+-------+--------+
Early | Win | Lose |
---------+-------+--------+
Later | Lose | Win |
---------+-------+--------+
Deflation| Buyer | Seller |
---------+-------+--------+
Early | Lose | Win |
---------+-------+--------+
Later | Win | Lose |
---------+-------+--------+
Of course, there's no way to ever prove some coins were lost or not so the point is moot.
In a roundabout way I agree with you, just not for the same reasons.
In effect the lost coins are already priced in, I just find the idea of lost BTC fascinating.