A terrible idea, unless the intent is to destroy bitcoins.  After using an address, I usually destroy the private key (after several confirmations) and put the change at a new address.   Many "active" addresses would be blackholes for bitcoins.

Although I don't exactly agree with a premise for the redistribution, a fairer way to distribute it would be to generate transactions that give it away in mining fees over time, distributing it to the miners.  Bitcoin owners could reap this bounty by buying mining contracts.

One method to answer the question of Dorian==Satoshi?  is for independent analysis comparing the known writings of Dorian and Satoshi.  

The reporter apparently used forensic analyst for the article as evidence of the link, perhaps more analysis would demonstrate more or less confidence in that link.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make -- are you saying that Bitcoin is some kind of play money that has no value when exchanged with fiat currency?  Both have perceived value and as long as they do, there will always be exchange between the two.   The world is not going to wake up to some libertarian-anarchist utopia and stop using government-issued fiat currency overnight.

Banks are hostile towards bitcoin, it's obvious, because it challenges their profits.  They are providing resistance, which just causes people wanting to exchange between fiat and currency to find alternate methods that are more expensive, down to trading with moneypak joe.   The free market predicts that there will be entrepreneurs that will build systems that are safer, cheaper and more more efficient than what currently exists for trading between the two.  When banks see their profits from payment systems and wire transfers going down, they or their successors will start dealing in bitcoin.

Feature suggestion:

It would be nice to put the QR address scanner (like on the send address input in the wallet) on the main page, such that it would be an easy matter to check the balance of an address from a paper wallet from the main page.   Also, it would be nice if you could use the scanner to add a watch only address in a wallet.

For a security consultant brought in to test a system for weakness, sure.  As the person supervising other programmers and writing code with no one looking over his shoulder, and that at one time crossed the line and invaded the computer systems of a company that he had no permission to invade, HELL NO.  The same reason police departments shouldn't hire murderers, rapists and robbers.  Usually such people will work with the police as paid informants, not police officers.

Karpeles was demonstrably a scam artist when he maliciously cheated a French business out of 15,000 EUR and fled the country.  This should have been discovered and publicized before MtGox got as big as it got, so only idiots would put money into that scam.


If you are implying that these people have drug charges, then the problem is that they would have relationships with criminals in the drugs and money laundering business.  At this point in bitcoin's history, with the authorities casting an evil eye towards bitcoin, such employees would be a liability -- a federal prosecutor could find a way to connect the company with criminal activity, seizing and raiding it, thus killing it.  i.e. Shrem.  You have to be a big bank like HCSB to actually get away with it.

In a theoretical scenario,  if the lead programmer had a hacking charges, the company's compliance officer had identity theft charges, and the CFO had financial fraud charges, and the company never performed background checks to find this out before the hires, you would be completely OK with it?  I personally think it would be grounds to sue on gross negligence.

A prohibition on fractional banking.
Real-time or at least daily auditing of client BTC balances.

Not that it matters much in relation to the amount of Satoshi's other bitcoins, but I though I read somewhere that the reward from the genesis block can't be spent due to an error in the implementation.

True, but my assumption is that I will have done due diligence in checking that the online computer is clean.  I'm pretty tech-savvy, but I'm not arrogant enough to think that I can prevent every attack.  The idea would be that I would limit my losses to only the exposed keys; a mugging versus a steal-my-life-savings scenario.  A malicious software that instantly steals your bitcoin would be pretty impressive.  Most malicious hacks that I have read about involve stealing your encrypted wallet data, subject it to dictionary attacks or get your password from a key logger, all which would take time to process.  A private key would only be valuable for a short time, from the time the paper wallet is loaded until the remainder of the transaction is swept from the hot wallet.

When bitcoin merchant pay terminals become widespread, I would hope to be able to use a hot wallet on my phone and only put the amount that I think I might spend from a paper wallet.  I'll sweep it all back to a paper wallet once I'm done shopping.  I see it similar to only carrying around a $100 of cash vs. carrying around a roll of $100 bills.


I like the idea, but it's something I'd only do if transacting large amounts of BTC.   You would still have the burden of transferring the address (from an online source) to the signing computer and then back to the online computer to send the transaction without a direct connection.   I'd still be uncomfortable with leaving private keys to a large amount of BTC on a device that could be hacked onsite. 
 
If keeping bitcoin safe becomes too difficult, then it will impede bitcoin's adoption amongst non-technical people.   I am confident I could teach my mother how to transfer a paper wallet to a hot wallet app, spend some bitcoins, then sweep the remainder to a fresh wallet.  I am sure I'd get a glassy-eyed response explaining why should and how to transfer bitcoin from a cold-storage computer to an online computer.

That is a good point.   However, the fear is that Satoshi would commit a irrational malicious act against bitcoin at no or little personal gain for him/herself.  Unlikely, but a concern.   Currently, that 1MBTC isn't worth anywhere near the spot price if suddenly converted to fiat (because the markets aren't big enough), he/she has a while to wait before using it to buy the private island and the fleet of yachts -- or spending it on eradicating some horrible disease from the planet.  It is much more likely to be sold off as needed, as the price goes up, without crashing the market.

As I understand it, the richest person in the USA, Bill Gates, cannot convert the majority of his wealth to fiat money or anything else.  Most of his wealth is in Microsoft stock, and he is legally constrained to the amount of Microsoft stock he can sell, such that he couldn't sell it all before dying naturally from old age.

Why would a laptop be desired over using paper wallets for cold storage?   A hard drive/flash memory can fail, and a laptop makes a tempting target in a burglary.  Unless you keep it physically secure from other people when not under your supervision, you can't really be confident that the private keys will never been copied/compromised. 

I'm using paper wallets generated on an offline computer with clean install.  I'm 99.9999% sure that those private keys don't exist on any machine on this planet.   When I need to transact btc, for just receiving, I get a fresh paper wallet from the safe, and send it to that address.   To send BTC, I use the loaded paper wallets that I need to cover the transaction, scan in the private keys, do my business, and put the remainder on fresh paper wallets.  All the old paper wallets, once their private keys have been disclosed to the online computer and have been verified to contain no value, get destroyed to preserve anonymity and protect against reuse.  In practice, I keep several paper wallets with 1 BTC on each, with one holding a remainder of less than 1 BTC.   I keep both the loaded and unloaded wallets in sealed envelopes when they are in the safe.  The loaded wallets are treated like paper currency and are stored as such.

Scanning in QR codes from paper wallets is a relatively simple process, no more a burden than copying keys from a cold storage laptop to a hot wallet on an online computer via a usb drive -- and keep in mind that you would only copy the keys you would need, otherwise, you would be exposing your "cold storage" private keys to be possibly read by malicious software.  Encrypting these won't help if the online computer has been compromised by a keystroke logger.

Also, paper wallets are much, much cheaper than buying a single-purpose computer.

Has there been discussion on how an analyst would be able to trace transactions through Shared Coin?

It seems to me that the weakness in Shared Coin transactions is that the type of transaction on the blockchain per iteration would be fairly unique (multi-sig, multiple inputs/outputs)

If an analyst wanted to connect a payment from a wallet to a payment address,  the analyst (with code) could form a tree of SharedCoin transactions starting with the final payment transaction, to a
large number of input addresses that connect to a Shared Coin transaction that is no more than 10 nodes removed from the final payment. (the maximum number of Shared Coin iterations)  In reality, all of these transactions would be close together in time, most likely end up in the same block.   

Assume the analyst has knowledge of the source address(es) and the address used to receive change in the transaction, thus knowing the amount.  Is it easy to determine that the transactions are connected if the amount of the transaction is non-trivial?

Even without knowledge of the input amount, wouldn't the number of suspected input addresses be manageable for higher scrutiny by the analyst?  (traceable to a withdrawal from a FineCEN-compliant institution linked to your identity)

I personally like the idea of Shared Coin, but I'd really like to know how much anonymity is being gained by using it.

If I'm doing my math right, miners will mine what Satoshi allegedly holds in 278 days.  His share drops from 10% to 9%.  His power to "kill" bitcoin will degrade over time.

A million btc is not worth what you think.   If a million BTC were to be sold or given away in a short period, it would crash the market -- devaluing bitcoin in general, and devaluing your own coins.   That would be an obscenity.   

If Satoshi is not into criminal money laundering or tax evasion, then his fiat capital gains will be taxed when they are converted into fiat in accordance with his local government's taxing authority and will be redistributed then.