Lost coins vulnerable to theft in the future?

[pooya87]

also I think (fairly new thought) that HD keys that were reused could be soft-forked to require a Zero Knowledge proof of knowledge of the chain code and master even if the coin private key was public information. (and soft-fork made not be spendable with direct ECDSA.).

I wonder how something like this could work considering the fact that any information provided based on hashes that could reproduce the keys could be duplicated by the other parties that are trying to steal the same coins.

But I am not sure how P2PK worked. Has the public key changed every time for early wallets?

The same as any other output script but instead of using hash of public key you use the same public key. It could be reused or the wallet could produce a new pubkey for every new payment (which was the default).

[Adam_xx]

But I am not sure how P2PK worked. Has the public key changed every time for early wallets?

The same as any other output script but instead of using hash of public key you use the same public key. It could be reused or the wallet could produce a new pubkey for every new payment (which was the default).

So the default was that the mining reward of 50 BTC was sent to a different public key each time?
It would favor the scenario of "gradual breaking" the keys rather than "grab all at once".

[o_e_l_e_o]

So the default was that the mining reward of 50 BTC was sent to a different public key each time?
It would favor the scenario of "gradual breaking" the keys rather than "grab all at once".

Correct.

The public key with the largest amounts of coins stored in a P2PK output that I am aware of is:

Code:

04633280c0a93b45217059013ddadab8d35b9a858336028fecdff64c6a5e068fadaf7d2b73bc22795fa160c2304703320516e1b0b20e43d613fa5975787c8287e4

This corresponds to the following uncompressed address: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/1PTYXwamXXgQoAhDbmUf98rY2Pg1pYXhin

Note that all the dust outputs which follow are P2PKH outputs paying to the address, not the public key. Only the very first output is P2PK, meaning 3,233.17 BTC are locked behind that public key.

[Adam_xx]

also I think (fairly new thought) that HD keys that were reused could be soft-forked to require a Zero Knowledge proof of knowledge of the chain code and master even if the coin private key was public information. (and soft-fork made not be spendable with direct ECDSA.).

I wonder how something like this could work considering the fact that any information provided based on hashes that could reproduce the keys could be duplicated by the other parties that are trying to steal the same coins.

That is the purpose of ZKP, isn't it? You provide a proof that you know some information without actually revealing it (and so nobody can duplicate it if you are the only one who knows the hash).