Bitcoin Forum

Hypothetically, if all private keys become compromised, has any one thought of a way to prove you owned it first?

is this one of those riddles like, if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a noise?
or whats the sound of one hand clapping

No no one thought Bitcoin is possible. There may be a way.

it would basically be the end of bitcoin.

Sign a message containing your name (or whatever form of identification you want to use) using the private key and find a way to embed the message and the signature (or a hash of the combination) in the blockchain. That proves ownership of the key at the time it was included in a block.

Idk quantum mechanics could do all kinds of things

Maybe we should be doing that

Anything is possible ? ???

Be the first to spend the bitcoins sent there.

No, any process that help you "reclaim" your private keys would require a centralized third-party authorization. And that would destroy whole purpose of crytocurrency: decentralization

+1

Ownership of BTC is proved by the private key

if a key is compromised by someone having a trojan:
then the thief has your coin and can move it to one of his keys. same as someone stealing your TV from your house, once its out of your possesion you can't do much from your sofa. the only recourse you have is to find out who did it. even if you could prove you owned it first, not knowing where those coins/possesions are now to force with violence or law to get them back is futile. identity is useless without having the ability or a chance of getting them back.

only if you have doxx on the thief then yes sending 1 tx for dust amounts with a message such as your username. or even having a vanity address using your username helps to get a court to believe you owned it first.

smart criminals would steal some coins. and then exchange them (mixer) for other coins. keeping the 'wealth'/'value' but not the taint. thus we run into the issue of should the funds with such taint be confiscated by law. EG if the FBI/SEC found that someone had coins that were related to a crime such as silk road taint for instance, should the courts allow confiscation from everyone with silk road taint? even if the coins have now changed hands a few times.

the thing to learn from these examples is simple. OWN your property, dont make it easy to steal, dont think other people will be there to recover the funds for you.

if a key is compromised by an encryption exploit:
then bitcoins, banks, online services, car/home security systems, secured corporate files are screwed until everything is moved over to a better encryption/fixed exploit

There is no way to prove anything of the kind (what the OP asks)

And anyone is free to pick any private key their soul desires so the concept of a compromised key is nonexistent.

they already are (http://www.directory.io).  there is a secret search engine on that site, where you can search for any specific private key  8)  it will destroy the world of Bitcoin as we know it    :o

I wouldn't put my private key into that search engine. Maybe they are logging the inputs, so they have the private keys of people, who want to check, if their private key is in the database.

Every private key is already compromised since you can pick any one you want. What would the ability to prove you owned one first accomplish?

The first person to move the coins owns it.

If you do generated a private key that has money in it, you deserve to keep them because you just hit the world's lowest probability jackpot ever.
The probability is only slightly lower than guessing all SAT MCQ and only has less than 2 wrong answers. If you did that, you deserve the score due to your sheer luck.

people say Quantum Mechanics = god.  and god would prevent something like that from happenin'   ;D