This pull request adds a draft of a new BIP project titled the “Bitcoin Dormant Refund Proposal (BDRP).”
The BIP project introduces a voluntary Long-Term Proof-of-Activity (LTAP) mechanism to distinguish between lost and dormant coins after more than 100 years, allowing them to be re-mined.
This proposal respects the principles of immutability and user sovereignty. We welcome your feedback.
8+
9+==Summary==
10+This proposal introduces an '''opt-in mechanism''' for Bitcoin holders to prove long-term activity over decades using signed time-based messages called Long-Term Activity Proofs (LTAPs). This mechanism enables the community to optionally consider inactive wallets (over 100 years) for recovery or recycling discussions — '''without compromising Bitcoin’s immutability, decentralization, or the principle of non-confiscation'''.
11+
12+==Abstract==
13+A substantial amount of Bitcoin is believed to be permanently lost due to forgotten private keys or abandoned wallets. This reduces the effective circulating supply and may cause extreme deflationary effects in the very long term.
21+* Facilitate historical auditing and policy planning by future communities.
22+
23+==Rationale==
24+Bitcoin is a finite resource. As time passes, more of it becomes irretrievably lost. While this contributes to scarcity and value, it also risks rendering Bitcoin illiquid in the far future.
25+
26+This proposal '''does not suggest forcibly reclaiming coins''', but rather introduces a '''social signal system''' to help distinguish between active and dormant wallets over extreme time horizons (e.g., 100+ years). This gives future generations the opportunity to evolve responsibly, should they choose to discuss reactivation of provably abandoned funds.
27+
28+==Specification==
29+
30+===1. Long-Term Activity Proof (LTAP)===
31+* A message signed with a wallet’s private key proving it is still accessible.
32+* Suggested to be generated once every 10 years, optionally published to a decentralized registry (on-chain, Layer-2, or other).
55+* LTAPs are purely cryptographic and voluntary.
56+* No public registry is mandatory — only suggested for future reference.
57+
58+==Compatibility==
59+* 100% backward-compatible with Bitcoin.
60+* Does not change consensus rules.
0@@ -0,0 +1,93 @@
1+BIP: TBD
Hey Idris, thank you for writing up your idea. Could you please share a link to the thread where this proposal has been discussed on the Bitcoin Developer mailing list?
I am not sure I understand what problem is being mitigated here. As far as I understand, this document proposes a scheme for users to attest that their coins are not lost, and recommends that users do so every ten years. It’s not clear to me what supposed benefit of publishing such an attestation would have before there is a push for confiscating dormant coins. Whenever a confiscation proposal were actually gathering steam, active owners could still attest to their coins being owned at that time, and instead of publishing an attestation, the owners of perceived-dormant funds could simply spend them to themselves to prove that they are not dormant and refresh the UTXOs’ age. Especially if this were only to apply to coins at least one century old, it seems to me that moving coins once per century is not an unreasonable thing to do anyway.
76+== Supporting Reference ==
77+
78+For full context, motivations, and background behind this BIP, please refer to the external repository:
79+https://github.com/Danger-MaN/Bitcoin_bip-bdrp
80+And My Twitter X:
81+https://X.CoM/Page_Magdi
I don’t see additional information in the linked external repository.
(The other BIP authors don’t provide their X/twitter social media account. Suggest omitting.)
“a lack of LTAPs may indicate dormancy”
Questionable motivation IMO. This would only be true if everyone were forced to adopt the practice of publishing activity proofs to avoid their funds considered dormant and garnished by overzealous authorities, which doesn’t seem in keeping the with bitcoin philosophy – thus, per BIP 2, out of BIPs scope.
Please see this section of BIP 2 on what to do before submitting a BIP draft to this repository:
0Once the champion has asked the Bitcoin community as to whether an idea has any chance of acceptance, a draft BIP should be presented to the [https://groups.google.com/g/bitcoindev Bitcoin development mailing list].
1This gives the author a chance to flesh out the draft BIP to make it properly formatted, of high quality, and to address additional concerns about the proposal.
2Following a discussion, the proposal should be submitted to the [https://github.com/bitcoin/bips BIPs git repository] as a pull request.