I have been here a pretty long time and if you stick around you will discover the following to be absolutely true:

    Bitcoin == Drama

It was true when I joined, it has been true the entire time I have been involved.

That is what makes it fun.

QC = Quantum Computing or Quantum Computer

Hypothetically if QC ever becomes a threat to the current signature algorithm used by Bitcoin (elliptical curve) then a different signature algorithm could be phased in to hypothetically create new addresses types that would be more resistant to being hacked by QC, hence "QC resistant addresses".  Everyone would then be encourage to move their coins from their current addresses (type 1xxxx and 3xxxxx) to these hypothetically created new addresses and then their coins would be safe from being hacked by a QC.

Current generation of QC can do only very menial things like factor a two digit number.  In other words QC is barely in its infancy.  It is extremely difficult to do and will take years if not decades to create a machines capable of cracking elliptical curve signatures.

Just google "bitcoin quantum computing" either here on this forum or on the internet in general.  There are dozens of thread on this subject here on this forum.

Theymos,

1) It is not about being accurate it is about getting clicks.  In that respect the article is a success.

2) My understanding of your thinking here, is this correct:

Since this whole hypothetical is years in the future I choose to get a bottle and wine about it now.

Deterministic wallet balance and transaction history reconstruction:
  Reconstruct the sequence of public/private key pairs from the seed and look them up on the blockchain

Core (and other) wallet balance and transaction history reconstruction:
  Iterate over the list of public/private key pairs kept in the wallet.dat file and look them up on the blockchain

In all wallets the balance and history of your wallet is kept on the blockchain and your wallet needs access to the blockchain in order to work.

When/If QC becomes a reality (this is a big When/If) and

After QC becomes a viable threat to Bitcoin and

After we have already forked to replace the QC vulnerable algorithms in Bitcoin with QC safe algorithms

Then and only then, maybe, we should consider possibly blacklisting older coins that are not covered by the QC safe replacement algorithms

Moving the coins from one QC vulnerable address to another QC vulnerable address just to keep them from getting blacklisted makes no sense.

This only makes sense after we have transitioned to new QC safe algorithms as a way to encourage (force) people to move their coins to the new algorithms.

At the rate QC is progressing those of us alive right now really don't have to worry about this.  Perhaps our grandchildren or maybe our children.

For maximum security, maximum privacy and maximum long term fungibility of the Bitcoin system every Bitcoin address should be used exactly twice:  once when the address gets funded from another address or addresses and the second time when all the coins at that address get spent.

A good deterministic wallet does just that automatically.  Every time you want to make a new deposit into your wallet the wallet will give you a new Bitcoin address.  Every time you spend money from your wallet the wallet will automatically select one or more of your currently funded addresses to make up the amount you want to send.  Any change due back to your wallet will go to a brand new address.

Do not worry about the inner workings so much.  It is this use of each address only once that we want.  Could other wallets be used that do this same thing?  Could you ensure that you use other wallets in this way?  Sure.  But with a good deterministic wallet this is the default behavior.

With a deterministic wallet you need to only keep track of one thing:  The 24 code words that encode the initial seed to the system.  That is it.  You keep those 24 words safe and private and you are good to go.  No other backups are ever necessary.  You do not need to remember to backup your wallet periodically, you do not have to worry about loss or destruction of the media used to back up the wallet (USB stick as an example).  Also you do not have to worry that when you go to read back your USB stick it has become unreadable because of electron migration over time.

24 words, redundantly stored in safe private places.  Done.

From these 24 words you can not only recover your current balance and your currently funded Bitcoin addresses but the entire history of all Bitcoin transactions ever made into and out of the wallet from the first funding transaction to the last.  This, opposed to a non deterministic wallet that grows over time as you use it since it has to remember every address ever used in order to reconstruct your transaction history.  A data file that grows larger over time and you have to remember to back up versus backing up the seed and keeping it VERY safe.

I suggest you get a deterministic wallet for many reasons:  your privacy, ease of backup and long term fungibility of the Bitcoin system.  I use the Trezor wallet but with a little research you can find other deterministic wallets.

Deterministic wallets never reuse the same Bitcoin address.

Now about your other coins.  Just send them to a trading account somewhere (Bitfinex, localbitcoins, any account will do) then wait a while, say a few days, then transfer your balance back to your brand new Trezor or other deterministic wallet.  You will not get your same coins back from the exchange.  When you deposit them they go into their big accounts for trading, when you transfer your balance out you will get different coins.

Or to more instantly exchange your current coins for new ones use bitmixer.io.

Get your deterministic wallet all set up and then send your BTC to bitmixer.io and for a fee they send you back new coins to your new wallet.

From then on always make deposits to your wallet onto the next address given to you by the wallet (the next one in the sequence).  Do this every time.

That is a good start.

While your method would send the Bitcoins to an address that would be "unspendable", they would continue to take up space in the UTXO set forever.

In other words every time you do that you create baggage that everyone has to carry around with them in the blockchain forever.

That is why, as discussed up thread many times, the preferred method of destroying Bitcoins would be OP_RETURN since those can be pruned from the blockchain and we are not stuck carrying them around in the blockchain forever.

I was going to answer this question but noticed it was already answered up thread.

If you are hell bent on destroying Bitcoins do this:


So, no, don't send them to 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE or 1ThrowYourBitcoinsHere1741jy71wis or 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa or any other "Bitcoin eater" address. 

If all this is true then the LAST thing you would want to do is burn up and destroy your precious MacBook Air to get no Bitcoins for your efforts.  Or best case waste a ton of electricity and run up your electricity bill for a few cents in Bytecoins.

I like your enthusiasm but Bitcoin mining is not a way to make money for you.  You will have to find another way.  Perhaps you could use your MacBook Air in some other way (write programs, web sites, etc. - I don't know you will have to be creative) to make money?

In about 61 days the number of Bitcoins available every day will be cut in half.

You can watch one estimate of the date and time this will happen here:  http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/

So on that day the number of Bitcoins your miners produce will be cut in half.

This will happen to every miner - not just you.  It is by design.  No, it cannot be changed.

The way Bitmixer.io works is they have a large pool of BTC they use for mixing.  If you let them use your BTC in the mixing pool you get a certain amount of income (interest) for letting them use your coins in the pool.

In the past I thought about doing that - letting them borrow BTC from me so I could make the income on the lent coins.  However, when I asked about it they said that they had enough investor/lenders at the time I asked so I never did it.

Perhaps, maybe, not sure, but maybe the behavior of the coins in question (not split up and then recombined like most coins) indicates the hacker is one of these people who directly lends their BTC for mixing?  If so that is a finite pool of people.  But, a list of the "investor/lenders" would be difficult or impossible to come by.

After lending BTC to Bitmixer.io for a period of time the lender could then withdraw their BTC and get back different (so mixed) coins plus interest.

First let me say WOW you are sure good at this stuff!  

The address:

https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/13BEFFkYAWQ3TKh21pb7uyZxdUcWwDfxHQ was mine

You can see it was originally funded in this transaction:

https://www.walletexplorer.com/txid/5bac649d0808c4d2cba6c2f873f2d02316ce4f376d69230c4f7023c3b849250d

Where I moved exactly 100 BTC from 13FSEdyNYDSUx3FDfQ9TRQtEM3qoHpxMUS to 13BEFFkYAWQ3TKh21pb7uyZxdUcWwDfxHQ

The address:

https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/13FSEdyNYDSUx3FDfQ9TRQtEM3qoHpxMUS was also mine

You can see it was originally funded by these two transactions:

https://www.walletexplorer.com/txid/2064ea10b5a565b99217d6e4e63a7e89a012d7a9bb156849c41e2604e411cc60 for 0.54117092 BTC

and

https://www.walletexplorer.com/txid/6da9edae3fa24b75d28e09ca1dc09860acf0855e8c7adb6df100dbe10366556a for 99.45882908 BTC

The mixer I use always gives me back two transactions to fund the output of the mixing.  One is small and one is large.  In this case 99.45882908 + 0.54117092 = 100 = the output of the mixer to me.

My records indicate that the output from the address you are following:

https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/1BtSypm6re3o4ed2VQzz4tffdiXuVe7w5X

Was directly sent to me as part of this transaction:

https://www.walletexplorer.com/txid/6da9edae3fa24b75d28e09ca1dc09860acf0855e8c7adb6df100dbe10366556a

Which, unfortunately for your efforts in tracking the culprit, was the larger of the two (99.45882908 + 0.54117092 = 100 BTC) transactions being returned to me from the mixer.

I was really hoping it was someone that I had bought BTC from on localbitcoins and was actually excited by the prospect of possibly being able to help you guys out but unfortunately that is not the case.

I never got to see all the evidence collected against me by Homeland Security.  From the evidence I did get to see I have been able to figure out most of the people I traded with on localbitcoins that were actually undercover operatives working for the various agencies involved in "operation Avalanche" - the large operation that I and several other Bitcoiners were swept up in.  However, there is one person I did a lot of trading with that my wife and I suspect was an undercover operative but was never able to prove it.  In fact, having to release his identity to me in a trial may have been one of the reasons they decided to drop the charges - to protect his identity for future operations.  That would have been so sweet if your research had somehow helped me in mine.

As everyone knows I am a long time supporter, enthusiast and activist of Bitcoin.

As I have repeatedly stated (check my post history) I personally believe the single largest threat to the entire concept of Bitcoin would be the loss of the fungible nature of Bitcoin.  Loss of the fungible nature of Bitcoin would demote it from a "money like" thing to a collectible thing.  The difference is that a collectible must be appraised and graded by a "trusted third party" in order to determine its value (think diamonds for example).  This would totally destroy Bitcoin and is the most likely path anyone who wanted to destroy it would take.

I am not one to just sit back and do nothing when it comes to my ideals and beliefs.  Therefore believing that periodic mixing of coins is one sure fire way to ensure the long term viability of Bitcoin I periodically run my coins through a mixing service.

On the day in question I sent about 105 BTC through a mixer and got back about 100 that were totally unrelated to the 105 BTC I sent into the mixer.

As you have found out from your extensive research some or all of those 100 BTC came from the entity you were tracking.  They simply put them into the mixer at about the same time as I put my into the mixer.

Good news:  The BTC you are tracking are now in the possession of the Federal government here:

https://blockchain.info/address/1Eu38i1DkRAPAJhSqbseVroJDpMRfJbAx3

I think that she may have considered Somalia but with all the government corruption, extortion, piracy, etc. she found it too much like the United States so it was taken off the list.

You do not know her.  She did that presentation on her own.  Thanks for watching it.

Consider changing your username, it's a bit off-putting.

This year my daughter's class has an assignment "decide where to reside" where the students were asked to research other places (states or countries) they might want to move to and then make a presentation on the place on why they picked the place, etc.  She is taking this assignment very seriously.

Previously they had an assignment to discuss an important issue and present it to the the class.  Most of the other students picked things like "animal cruelty".  My daughters presentation was more interesting and you can find a link to it (the first link in the first paragraph) on this page:

 http://www.jmwagner.com/about.html

Yes, this happened to me, my wife and my daughter.  I agree it was very harsh and totally draconian.  A simple cease and desist letter would have done the trick.  Something like:

They charged me in order to extort money and Bitcoins from me.

Most people do not care about or hear about the consequences of living under the patriot act (martial law) or living in a country where their money, Bitcoins and other property can be seized, charged in a civil suit, and be considered guilty until they can prove to the authorities that their money, Bitcoins and other property is innocent.

If interested please watch this brilliant video which explains civil forfeiture.

I traded Bitcoins.  The sole charge against me was 18-1960.

They love this regulation because the patriot act applies (they can do everything in secret, lie, etc.) and more importantly civil asset forfeiture applies to this regulation.

All the public notes were added after they took the bitcoins from me.  The only charge against me was 18-1960.

Thanks.  I am still mad about it as you can imagine.