Coinbase transactions where the miner doesn't claim some or all of the available new coin issuance and fees represents Provably Lost coin.

Abstract

All blocks below height 6,930,000 include a reward of new coin issuance. If miners fail to claim some or all of that reward, that new coin is never created and causes less than the expected amount of coin to exist. Additionally, if the miner fails to collect some or all of the fees transactions surrender within the block, that coin is also permanently lost.

Detail

As both new coin issuance and fees collected are added together to create the value of the coinbase transaction, it isn't always clear which part of the calculation caused miner loss.

Not claiming some or all available new coin issuance leads to less than the expected new supply to be created. However, not claiming fees decreases the total supply in the system. It isn't always clear if a miner isn't accepting new coin issuance or declining fees because both values are added together. It is also not clear if a miner simply made a mistake or is voulentarily choosing no to accept supply available to them.

As new coin issuance halves every 210,000 blocks, fees likely become a larger and larger percentage of the overall reward available to a miner. While net supply loss due to miner error is always possible, it will probably become more likely as more halvings happen.

Implementation

Blocks whose output_sum minus input_sum is less than allowed_supply cause provably lost supply.

block.supply_loss = block.allowed_supply < block.output_sum - block.input_sum;

Example

Block 124724 looses 0.01000001 BTC

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