How is “days destroyed” different from “amount of BTC” in existence?

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According to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Days_Destroyed , if I have 100 BTC for seven days and then spend them, that’s 700 days destroyed.

But if I didn't have them, someone else would have them. So how does the metric differ from the amount of BTC that exists?

WGroleau

Posted 2014-03-03T02:34:10.753

Reputation: 131

Question was closed 2014-03-04T05:31:58.060

Answers

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Days destroyed are measured in BTC * days Amounts of BTC are measured in BTCs

The two concepts are as different as Power (Watts) vs Energy (Joules).

uminatsu

Posted 2014-03-03T02:34:10.753

Reputation: 1 061

Understood. But one is linearly proportional to the other. So why do we need both? With power and energy, we’re usually dealing with a subset of the set of devices or of the supply, so the difference is meaningful. No doubt there’s some other detail I’m missing.WGroleau 2014-03-03T02:59:51.897

Not true. The UPPER BOUND of Days-destroyed is linearly proportional to the total amount of BTC in existence. But if no transactions occur, then Days-destroyed will not grow.uminatsu 2014-03-03T03:31:33.773

“no transactions occurring” is a hypothetical that will never happen. So days destroyed correlates to the amount not being spent? Wait, that still sounds like what I said before. I guess I still don’t get it.WGroleau 2014-03-22T15:47:35.970