Bitcoin Forum

If there was a way to get rid of satoshi's coins. Should they be deleted?

I think yes, a 21% instamine is ridiculous. It gives a bad name to BTC.

I would want to give them to Mark Zuckerberg and have him distribute them on facebook.

What do you mean by delete?  There is no delete or copy on the bitcoin blockchain. The blockchain is not a file system.
They can be moved by anyone who has the private keys.

No, but there would be a way unless someone had access to them or satoshi had lost access to them whether by accident on purpose. I guess them all coming onto the market at once would cause a crash but I don't think satoshi would do that.

They could be send to an address that has no known private key associated with it.
like http://blockexplorer.com/address/1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE

I dont think it makes any difference whether they are not used or send to another address that no one currently can use.

There are always ways. You could hard fork the code to allow for just those coins to be sent to a different address without the private keys. You could create a new blockchain or a modified blockchain that all users must update to.

Obviously it's not going to happen. But I want to see it happen. Especially if all of those BTC were distributed to facebook users and there was a BTC wallet included in the facebook app.

Satoshi's 21% of coins is the biggest problem with BTC for me.

Facebook is a much worse problem to me. At least send satoshi coins to the Winklevoss Twins.

 ;D

I thought "Satoshi's coins" were unspendable even if he A) was still alive B) had the original wallet.

Only the 50 BTC from the genesis block are unspendable. Considering that Satoshi mined several blocks there should be plenty more available.

LOL. OP is a troll. Imagine how public would perceive this: all the Bitcoiners gang-up and delete Satoshi's bitcoins. Thus the 51% attack took effect. Thus Bitcoin failed. Satoshi wasn't Julius Caesar, but Brutus and his gang sure stabbed him in the back to death. Y'know, that's at least how it would be perceived.

But, to be technical, OF COURSE it can be done. It's binary data in the end. Doesn't mean it will look good for Bitcoin in the big picture.

You can "destroy" (the value of) Satoshi's btc right now, all you have to do is convince 51% of the mining community to adopt your hard fork.

Good luck, champ.  ;)

no we cannt delete them as because we don't even know how to make them....after so many years also we are unable to know that how to make a bitcoin we just know that these are minable and we can mine it from the network with the help of a power consuming box called mining riges

there where 70+ blocks mined before Hal mined any (from my knowledge) plus there are plenty more blocks after that which are thought to be his aswell (I think)

No, we can't "delete" the coins, how are you supossed to do that? plus that would fuck up the history of the blockchain. And why would you want togive them to Zuckerberg? he would probably dump them for USD lol.

That's just a bunch of FUD.

There was NO "instamine" in bitcoin.  Saying so is simply a fear tactic from those that want to convince others not to trust bitcoin.

There is no clear answer as to exactly how many bitcoins Satoshi has mined.  Any number you've heard is nothing more than an educated guess.  The most likely estimates I've seen are somewhere around 1 million.  Even if he actually has control over 1 million bitcoins, that's only 7.1% of the bitcoins that have been mined so far (and only 4.8% of all the bitcoins that will ever be mined).  In order to have 21% "instamine", he'd have to have control over nearly 4.5 million bitcoins.  I haven't seen any analysis that would lead to such a ridiculous claim.

Yeah, there's no such thing as an "insta-mine". Every bitcoin was minted with an algorithm, that's what "proof of work" is all about. I think people get really riled up that Satoshi could "make magic money out of thin air" but they don't realize it's their own greed doing the talking for them, that Satoshi didn't sprinkle-dust some money for them, too.

This is wrong. You need to look up what "instamine" means, but in any case this is not what happened. One can't blame Satoshi because you didn't find his work in time and even if you did you didn't start mining.
If we were to delete his coins that would look bad because it would show that the developers could effectively make someone go from rich to broke.
Satoshi's coins shouldn't be touched and this discussion should be ended forever.

Babling about instamine is quite stupid thing as in that time there were very few ppl to mine and keep the blockchain running.

LOL. I know what I'm talking about. Trust me.

Why do you want to do this? seriously, what vendetta do you have against Satoshi, let him have his Bitcoins, how will it be if i just deleted your Bitcoins lol, let Satoshi have what is his.

My vote is no for this, let Satoshi have his Bitcoins which he deserves every bit of it, maybe he will be back later and use his coins, and on a realistic point of view it is not possible for you to get 51% miners throughout the world to your side and hardfork it.

I think it is clear from the poll that only a small number of loosers would go with the fork with the deleted coins.

A) there isn't
B) why should that even be contemplated?
c) if it were possible, then shouldn't we delete yours as well?

Really, what is the point of such a question???

If so, we should first delete central bank's fiat money, currently they are holding more than 80% of USD in existence. If they dump all those USDs then USD's value will crash to single satoshi  :o

so imposibble to make like that, otherwise if all bitcoin adopter sell all the coin, the value of BTC will be crash to USD

Bitcoin is a real cryptocurrency, it doesn't get deleted or just disappear one day.  Unlike Gridcoin, which just swapped to a new blockchain and screwed everyone who didn't hear about the swap in time.  If you own bitcoins, you can keep them for years and not worry about them going anywhere.

I vote.. NO.   No way they could know it would have any value at all. 

Explain from where did you got that 21% figure? 21% means a total of BTC4,410,000. According to most analysts, Satoshi is in the possession of a total of BTC980,000, which accounts for just 4.67% of all coins. And a majority of his coins were mined after other individuals started mining.

I would say that depending on the amount,but I guess he has a huge amount of thousands,and in that case I think that it is really dangerous that one person holds that high percentage of bitcoins

No. For the reason that if you did you'd set a precedent that people with power could choose to delete someone's coins meaning that as a store of value Bitcoin would be worthless. Nobody would be willing to keep and buy Bitcoins if they knew that one day someone could just remove/delete them all.

No. Just my 2 cents

Firstly, it can't be deleted. The answer of your question is definitely NO.

Secondly, Satoshi never cashed out 1 btc or 0.01btc, he is a super sage.

Thirdly, almost every public company founder has large share of the company, you can't ask them delete their shares.

Finally, he deserves those coins, but he never sold one. If he sells some coins, how can we blame him?

I find it interesting that almost 15% of the population on this forum (which probably has above average intelligence) is so full of envy that they would destroy someone else's wealth.

It is to early to say yet, but Satoshi's algorithm may end of changing the world. If Bitcoin succeeds, we may finally see a reversal of the government centralization and corporate corruption. Decreased wars, end to mass plunder, and greater respect for property rights.

The fact that I can store wealth in my mind is something I never imagined before. I sleep much better at night knowing that I can travel the world without worrying about borders or governments confiscating my bank accounts.

I will admit to feeling jealousy of those who heard of Bitcoin before I did in summer of 2013. However, there is a big difference between jealousy (wanting something for myself) and envy (wishing to destroy something owned by someone else).

If nothing else, just think of Satoshi's wealth as a user fee for using his algorithm. The church asks for 10% of your earnings and all they do is make people crazy. Certainly we can honor Satoshi with less than that % for Bitcoin.

You want to pi$$ off the inventor of one of the greatest and disruptive technologies in this world?

Leave the coins, they increase the value of all of our coins by being out of circulation... it's existance is no threat to me at all. Those coins are like a monument and it makes different statements to different people.

If they hard fork Bitcoin to get rid off those coins, many people would question the security of their own coins. {To whom would it be done next?}

Any thing (coins) you do not own or know previously is a instamine? Those coins were mined for very long time.

Exactly and them coins what was mined for a long time took dedication to bitcoin, time, electricity, just because the value went up doesn't mean the altcoin fan boys should come cheer for something that someone worked for to be deleted! I have never heard so much **&*..

Clearly i vote they should not be deleted nobody has the right except satoshi who 'worked' for them, also you could say that is  pretty much done himself.  Proof of this 21% so called instamine or it never happened.

I have made bold the most stupid thing i have heard in my life so far, well done!

No. I think he/she/it/they pretty much deserved that much as the creator of bitcoin (which leads to the making of other cryptocurrencies).

at least not as long as he doesn't use those btc to ruin btc itself. that would be like ruining other people's life.

It is psychological difference, if people would know and be sure about that Satoshi's coins are unable to be spend/lost. They will stop talking when/if Satoshi will claim his coins and that will provide additional 'ease of mind' for doubters and theorycrafting individuals. So it is a difference.

just no. coins must stay where they are for ever. and who knows maybe there are already "deleted" as satoshi might not be able to access these coins anymore.

That's correct, whiletechnically it is not a delete it is unlikely someone has that private key  :)  This could be seen as a delete.

 Satoshi's coins just as a time bomb, when he cashout, the market will definitely collapse, but we have no right to delete his coins, if this happened, the bitcoin will die, think about it, your wealth can be deleted, it's crazy.

Why should the marjet collapse? Do you really think he would just place a marker sell order for all of his coins in one go? Or would your faith in Bitcoin be so shaken that its creator wanted to spend some of his coin like everyone else? I don't get it. 

The fact that we would have less coins in circulations will probably increase value of everyones coins. But there is second factor - physiological - when people realise that these coins are being tinkered with they came to conclusion that any bitcoin is not secure and they can lost bitcoins too. But it is purely hypothetical scenario as I don't think deleting coins is possible.

I also don't like redheads, their coins should be deleted. And postal employees, don't get me started, let's delete their coins. Basically I'm cool with deleting all your coins but not mine.  ::)

Thank God this is impossible.

he didn't instamine shit, because the diff started from 1 on bitcoin, you know this right? apparently not, also he did it for testing, and the price was like zero back then, nothing to compare with modern crapcoin

btw your math is way off, by a long shot

The total is close to a million BTCs.

Only one block was ever spent, the rest are where they are. It is very likely that Satoshi doesn't have access to them either.

Probably he threw away the coins, as he was more of an ideologically driven person, than a money-driven one. Also, he might have never expected the Bitcoin to become so valued. Anyway, it is good news for the rest of the users.

i beg to differ, he was expecting farm to grow big as they are right now, thus he was expecting a good price for bitcoin too(probably even more than 1k in 5 years) and a better adoption.

it could also explain why he didn't dumped even a tiny portion of  his amount

The market wouldn't crash because there would need to be a demand high enough to absorb all these coins at once to create a bump, which I doubt. Dont be scared, satoshi will never sell anyway.

I agree with these two points in your post:

1. He was expecting BTC to grow big
2. He was expecting widespread adoption of Bitcoin

However, I disagree with this point:

1. He was expecting a high exchange rate for BTC, in comparison to fiat. (Satoshi was an ideologically driven individual. Exchange rates would be of no importance for him).

No. In my opinion, if you 'delete' satoshi's coins, you're basically going to destroy Bitcoin. Think about it, where would be the limit? How about deleting the lost Mt. Gox coins too? And how would you feel if someday suddenly all your own coins are gone?

There is NO chance you can ever find out how much or which coins belong to Satoshi because: http://blog.dustintrammell.com/2013/11/26/i-am-not-satoshi/ (http://blog.dustintrammell.com/2013/11/26/i-am-not-satoshi/)

when they never move, that is no problem.

Why would satoshi destroy what him and everyone else here created? I Like to think that if he ever comes back at that time many places will accept bitcoin and he will just use it. Bill Gates doesnt spend all his money or convert it all to euro

Why should satoshis coins be deleted? He is the founder of bitcoin. Without him, we all wouldnt be here at this forum. Dont you think he should at least get a reward for it?!

Perhaps deleting OPs coins would be a better idea. :D

The man created this beautiful industry, gave you the opportunity to be here and you want to leave him/her penniless. Why?

For the record, these are thought to be coins under the control of Satoshi. Since they have never moved after they were mined, It is quite possible that these are now inaccessible.

It always depends on the use they would be for and the amount.
But it is never good that only one person have that high percentage of bitcoins,because that is what we want to avoid here,centralization,and that is what happens if he has that huge amount

No coins earned/worked for by our inventor/s should be dictated what should be done with them by anyone except them lol We are nobody's in the scheme of things it was created to help us all climb out from under the banks control and be our own bank plus a whole brilliant things and you want to repay that buy deleting his/their coins?!

Come on dude that is what is ridiculous like your grasp on how many and how the coins was acquired he worked for them as did every other miner, should we delete them all  :D   

It would be awesome for you to give the coins to that zuckerberg because you would not be losing much by everyone of the distributed coins getting dumped on our face and crash the price more than we can ever imagine.

Even better. Let's take the coins owned by the Winklevoss twins and give them to Mark Zukerberg! lol

Damn, F-ed again!  :D

LOL that's funny.

I don't mind Satoshi his coins at all, he deserves them in full if he really happens to have that many coins. Deleting coins/value is never a good idea.

I'm also pretty sure that these coins won't move as he had the chance to sell his coins at the +$1000 peak if he wanted to. Coins will sleep for ever.

Well it is up to every miner and everyone who is running a full node to decide whether coins should be deleted or not. I think such a precedent would be something very very bad to BTC since it would destroy the fungibility of the underlying asset. No one could be sure that their coins wouldn't be the next to be deleted.

Probably he freezed them on purpose. I can imagine him being a man of higher morals and thinking "well, a single entity doesn't need to be in control of this ridiculous amounts of coins" and forgot the password to freeze them forever and help the overall scarcity factor.

I kept looking at the OP's poll, and the only available answers were 'yes' and 'no'. 

Can we edit the poll to add a 'That's a Stupid Question' button?

Well, I agree that this is a rather stupid question, but I think it would be a wise thing to do to explain to him why it really doesn't matter whether those coins are still available or not. Also it is very important to understand why this really wouldn't hurt Bitcoin by undermining one of it's key principles.

Central banks hold 1/3 of world's gold reserve, should they destroy them? What if they dump all the gold on market and crash the gold price to cents?

Even central banks decided to dump small amount of gold, they would still do it gradually, to not affect the market price too much

No, but i wonder what satoshi can or will do with it. There was a statement from him that one never should delete a wallet, so most probably he hasnt too. So that leaves where will he give the coins to. If he dies and his childs get them there is a chance they will bring bitcoin down. He would never risk this.

So the only other solution would be that he now, after he made this big change, can bring the next big change. Maybe he waits for the price of those coins to rise in order to match his plans.

What i think about are that he can give power to certain groups that he thinks of are worthy to support. Libertarians, humanitarians or something like an organization that could be a worldwide, free and really democratic government. Depending on the amount of worth his bitcoins could be a real power at some point.

Thats the only solution for the coins that i see. He cant risk much there.

Of course that only valid as long as he didnt mine to a bogus address.

Saying that... does anyone believe that the NSA didnt have enough data about all his work to identify him long ago? Even when they only found out about it later, they have huge data storages. So i think its unlikely that the NSA doesnt know who he is.

So it might be that this wealth is in the wrong hands since a long time already. And i dont want to speculate what they will do with it.

Nope.  Satoshi's coins should not be deleted.

If he never touches or moves them again, they're considered lost coins.  Scarcity is a built in attribute of Bitcoin.  If somehow finally proven lost, BOOM, everyone else's coins gains in value.

I think it hampers adoption...no government is going to be cool with a currency where 1 person holds 21%

who holds 21%?

again it's not 21%, he is holding at best 2M, since when 2M is 21% of 21M? it's not even 10% let alone 21...learn to do math first

anyway i do believe that satoshi's coins should be distributed among 1-2M people, 1 btc each, better if those people are not holding any btc(but it would be hard to prove...)

Before we ever thought of that, first thing first can we really identify all the coins that belong to satoshi. Having done that, we can't just ignore or delete part of the blocks that hold the coin. If we can do that, does that mean we can do the same for the rest of the coin if the need calls for? And again how is that even possible? These are things we need to consider before we engage  this discussion.

Sure, cause nothing says thank you for such a kick ass invention like 'fuck you'

that's fucking absurd.

well before ansering your question let me ask you that can you edit the codes or can you edit a satoshi coin...or anyone can?.
I won't think anyone can.so , when anyone cannot edit it so how can amyone can delete(exiclute) it

Lol, Bitcoin fungibility = Fail, thats why i trust Monero more

If you feel compelled to ask such a stupid question, you don't understand Bitcoin...

If Satoshi even moved a single BTC, everyone would then know that he really still controlled his coins(!) That would potentially cause quite a panic since we couldn't be sure that he isn't dumping all his coins using the nearest exchange. Also, it might reveal his identity or at least confirm he's still active!

No,It's a part of a history and can be deleted. I don't If satoshi, how he will delete all bitcoins in an instance?

No, they can not. There is no way to delete Bitcoin in Bitcoin Blockchain.

Erm, how can Satoshis coins be deleted?
If that was possible then the Gox stolen coins should be deleted too.

There shouldn't be any coin deletion, instead they should be sent to the address in my profile  :P

You are asking whether the community should take away money from someone, because "we" don't like the fact that he/she has more money than us. If this would be the norm, there would be only the developer team using Bitcoin.

Deleting coins doesn't make sense. Thinking like this would only mean that OP has no clue how the blockchain work.
To effectively delete them, it would mean the history since the deletion of the coins would be lost, in other world complete nonsense.

Instead of "deleting" them, you could transfer them to a burn address if 51% of the mining power would accept a normally invalid transaction.

I honestly think Satoshi considers doing all sorts of things with his coins, but doing nothing with them is the best option he can come up with. I bet he often considers distributing most of his coins amongst the community, but after 3 seconds looking at the main page here at bitcointalk, he thinks to himself "Why would I give my coins to these retards?" honestly, he sits there looking at his baby, watching it roll around in its own filth, and thinks "....nope..."

now, those coins can not be deleted by an external force, only the holder of the private keys can do that. If you or I or the bitcoin foundation, or Gavin, or anybody other than satoshi had the power to delete someone else's coins, bitcoin would be finished instantly and could never be saved.

With Bitcoin you can always mix your coins, with Monero you cant know if a double spending bug happens due to the non transparent ledger.

I voted NO they should not be deleted and to be honest just asking whether they should makes me think you shouldn't be in bitcoin, who in their right mind would even consider deleting the creators coins if they could!? It is crazy talk along the lines of should the blockchain get deleted and everything else that has followed from his hard work.

Saying that I did see some fud the other week or maybe it was truth but basically fud because they won't achieve some chinese guys trying to steal his private keys. It looks like satoshi has no plans on spending the bitcoin or he would have within this time so I really don't see what the deal is it is not like he could not have dumped at the peak, he is anonymous enough afterall.

Deleting satoshi's coins would basically spell the end for bitcoin..

No organization nor person should ever be given that much power over the blockchain and the day that it happens BTC will become useless.
Let satoshi have his coins, He deserves them. Although I think if he ever does move the coins the panic it would cause will likely end BTC.
The fact that you even asked this question bothers me.. If you made something would you like it taken away even though its rightfully yours?

Go use another coin if you don't like the instamine.
And facebook, are you fucking serious?

No way should Satoshi's coins be deleted.  For one thing, how on earth would you get consensus with everyone for such a nonsense idea?  They have to work really hard to get consensus for reasonable things like block size increase, etc.  Then, think about it further, if Satoshi's coins can be "deleted" then so can yours.  How would that be a good thing?  Don't be a hater.  Just cos Satoshi thought of it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to be treated with the same respect as any other bitcoin user.  :)

You can't do things like that due to precedence, then other people would request other bitcoins to be deleted.

Satoshi himself could have lost / destroyed all records of the private key, making those coins unspendable.
Nobody else has any right to decide what to do with those coins.

What?....
Monero doesn't work like Bitcoin?
I mean, they do not have a distributed ledger that everyone can verify?

well your question is a little bit off-topic since coins on bitcoin can't be deleted

No.
Even if it was possible who the hell would have the right to do that to the genius behind the world of bitcoin.
Satoshi deserves those coins and if he ever does decide to sell (if he still has access to those coins) I think he'd bleed them onto the market slowly/gradually.
He'd never dump them all at once, it'd destroy his invention, something he worked so hard to achieve.
If he still has the private keys then I trust him with the power.

Technically speaking, yes, they can.
All it takes is knowing exactly which addresses belong to Satoshi and then tamper with the blockchain.
Of course the majority would have to agree on the new chain.

I think he might wait until its a world dominating currency. Then he will take over the world.  :D

No, really. I think he has an enourmous power. Bitcoin might really become a big part of the world wide financial system. He could do very much things with it. Depending on his character. He could create a form of organization to get every result he want with it. The possibilities are endless.

I hope he is a nice guy. His coins could destroy so much but they could change much to the better too.

Instead of showing the world all the gold, US gov. will show the world 1 million bitcoins by signing a message.
Satoshi does not exist.

I think the best way to get rid of those coins is to just donate them. not at once but little by little. there are many charity organization accepting bitcoin like red cross or something

And because the majority would never agree with the new chain, you may as well acknowledge that they cannot :)

Another way that they could be deleted would be for someone to alter Satoshi's brain and/or his records such that he cannot find his private keys.  That would also effectively delete them, but again, why are we considering these outlandish scenarios?  Lol.

Where would it stop if all the miners agreed to start deleting particular coins? There have been countless scams in the Bitcoin world and people would start demanding deletion of stolen/scammed coins. What if buyers had innocently bought those stolen coins, then the miners all agreed to delete them?

oh no ! Do you know the manga One Piece ?

It is like telling me that the treasure of Gold Roger that just fired a new age of exploration does not exist : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM7uCI6LXbU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM7uCI6LXbU)

Hmm, the satoshi's coins are a lot and theirs no way to sell them or enter them in other profitable
things , that will come bitcoin price death , the best way is to just delete them as you say .

Bitcoin Boy .

wow. 6 pages of replies to a troll post.

At least you are on-topic.

I will say not to delete Satoshi's coins.

Hell no!!!

If that were done, it would kill the coin.