Thoughts on Satoshis Holdings and Supercomputing

[Kakmakr]

My scenario is as follows :

Let's say someone created this super computer <quantum technology> and they manage to brute for ANY private key for a Bitcoin address, then all of us are f$#^ed!

The moment when this is announced and verified, people will dump their coins and the price of Bitcoin would drop dramatically. The effort and time and electricity spend to brute force these addresses, will not even pay for the coins that they gain.

Do you still think it is worth their while and what is stopping developers to use stronger algorithms. 

[DdmrDdmr]

It’s not only Bitcoin that could be potentially "at risk" in the future, but most of the current encryption based security used in industries such as banking and internet.

Most articles you find online state that quantum computers may have enough power in a decade to be able to derive private keys on an individual level, or even pose a global threat to the network due to their hash power. These estimations nevertheless are considering BTC as is, with disregard to whatever technical evolutions it may have in the coming years.

BTC is not immutable, and as development goes on, and one can only presume that the threat is being measured, and that counter measures (change of protocol or whatever) can be developed and deployed, making it “quantum proof” at some point if the threat should pose to be a near reality.

[hatshepsut93]

First, if someone will have the technology to brute-force private keys, it would mean that they can crack all keys of the network, not just Satoshi's keys. They'll be just guessing all possible keys and draining coins when they find those with balance. It's not anywhere near feasible now, not looking to be feasible in the near future, and maybe it will never be possible.
As for quantum computers, they can be good at cracking keys when public keys are known, but they aren't known in Bitcoin protocol by default - they only get exposed when someone spends coins.

[squatter]

As for quantum computers, they can be good at cracking keys when public keys are known, but they aren't known in Bitcoin protocol by default - they only get exposed when someone spends coins.

Indeed, not all keys on the network are vulnerable. Bitcoin already has some built-in quantum resistance since we use pubkey hashes.

That doesn't apply to the Satoshi coins, though, so I can understand why people are nervous about millions of "lost" coins entering circulation again. The Satoshi coins will probably remain sitting on exposed public keys until eventually stolen. The only way to prevent that would be to implement a fork that censors the outputs...

[franky1]

as others have said. satoshi's stash is not stored on a single private key, its split up as 50coins over thousands of keys.

also by the time d-wave sort themselves out a protocol on how they are going to control their non-binary transistors the circulation of bitcoin should be diluted around a population where no one should have huge hoards in a single address to be a visual target.

Notionally, that would make it potentially more profitable

nope. the opposite.
firstly d-wave (quantum) is not about counting faster than binary. its about vector math of 3 dimensions(3 choices) instead of 2

so i know your thinking with binary, brute forcing ANY key by simply starting at 0 and counting up until you find a key with something on it.. if there are morekeys used and becomes more populated.. then chances are higher
BUT quantum wont help with that. quantum is only slightly better at counting from 0 up than binary is

quantum would be better than binary at having known vector/data and solving the solution to that vector faster than binary.
EG quantum can break a specific ecdsa key faster than binary.. but cant brute force from 0 to whatever number to get to the same key much faster.

to brute a private key is like asking your descendants multiple generations in the future to continue your project using current binary or quantum.

but cracking a specific key, knowing part of the vectors involved and trying to find the missing piece. doing it with quantum would be faster than binary

thus my point, imagine it can be done in a year.
as long as people dont store a years worth of costs on a private key they wont be a target

[hatshepsut93]

The Satoshi coins will probably remain sitting on exposed public keys until eventually stolen. The only way to prevent that would be to implement a fork that censors the outputs...

I doubt that Satoshi exposed any of his public keys, as far as I know it happens under 2 scenarios: first when you send a transaction and it's not yet confirmed - then there's a short window of opportunity to crack the key while the transactions is still in mempool and publish a contentious transaction, so overall it's extremely hard and can happen to anyone, not only Satoshi; the second is if we reused the address that he previously used to send transactions, but if I remember correctly, he was speaking against the address reuse in early days, and with his expertise in cryptography we can assume that he wouldn't make such a mistake.

[squatter]

The Satoshi coins will probably remain sitting on exposed public keys until eventually stolen. The only way to prevent that would be to implement a fork that censors the outputs...

I doubt that Satoshi exposed any of his public keys, as far as I know it happens under 2 scenarios: first when you send a transaction and it's not yet confirmed - then there's a short window of opportunity to crack the key while the transactions is still in mempool and publish a contentious transaction, so overall it's extremely hard and can happen to anyone, not only Satoshi; the second is if we reused the address that he previously used to send transactions, but if I remember correctly, he was speaking against the address reuse in early days, and with his expertise in cryptography we can assume that he wouldn't make such a mistake.

In the early days, P2PK (pay to pubkey) outputs were common because of the Pay-to-IP feature which was removed in 0.8.0. Many of the early coins are sitting on exposed public keys for this reason.

[Marry Finch]

The problem really exists. Technical progress will inevitably develop and fast supercomputers will appear. Their capabilities will pose a real threat to private cryptocurrency keys, including from the expected appearance of such capabilities of quantum computers. It is expected that there will also appear technologies that will protect the cryptocurrency from such vulnerabilities, but so far it is difficult to say something more specifically.