Very much agreeing with you in principle that punishing savers is a terrible idea.

That being said, if bitcoin:

* Isn't backed by government (participation is voluntary)

* Is inherently delationary & encourages hoarding

* Loses coins from the system due to accident (eg, people losing passwords)

Then it follows that at some point we expect, say, plumbers to do actual work for someone who's contribution was that they were there buying bitcoin in 2015. It might be troublesome to get the plumbers buy-in to bitcoin specifically vs a new competitor where all participants are pulling their weight in the real world.

Basically, deflation + a long memory makes a monetary system unattractive for people to buy into.

EDIT: I'll point out that _so far_ bitcoin has been an inflationary currency from the point of view of number-of-coins created. That will change.