Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed”

[owm123]

“This issue has been discussed for several years,” he said. “I think that the very-rough consensus is that old coins should be destroyed before they are stolen to prevent disastrous monetary inflation. People joined Bitcoin with the understanding that coins would be permanently lost at some low rate, leading to long-term monetary deflation. Allowing lost coins to be recovered violates this assumption, and is a systemic security issue.”

https://news.bitcoin.com/theymos-bitcoins-satoshi-destroyed/



In my view, the moment Bitcoin devs or anyone start dictating what to do with bitcoin of others, censorship resistance of bitcoin will be lost. Satoshi would be proud for sure.

So you agree with thymos or not? Should the coins be destroyed or not?

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[Syke]

Worst idea ever.

[--Encrypted--]

theymos actually is proposing ALL lost coins to be destroyed after a certain amount of time to prevent anyone from getting hold of those bitcoins at the future and dump them for dollars. I'm not entirely sure if this would be a good move, however. (edit: leaning to "no" after reading some of the replies below.)

if they're going to do it. make the second soft-fork to trigger in 10 years or even 15 or 20. five years are not long enough to make sure that everyone is protected (IMO).

[achow101]

Perhaps you should go to the source of that article itself, the reddit comment that Theymos posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4isxjr/petition_to_protect_satoshis_coins/d30we6f. Instead of taking the obviously biased article as truth, you should read the comment and the context to see what Theymos was actually proposing. The point of the proposal is that it prevents thieves from stealing those 1 Million Bitcoin and all of the other lost coins and actually screwing with Bitcoin. Imagine if someone got their hands on Satoshi's coins; whoever got those could dump them all and drop the price, or, he just made several hundred million dollars for little to no effort. Whoever got those coins would have immense power over Bitcoin's economics.

If Satoshi wants his coins so badly, then he can move them himself before they are destroyed. However, based upon the current trend of those coins not moving, destroying them in the proposed manner would not have any effect on the economy whatsoever as they are essentially acting as burned coins.

[rizzlarolla]

If Satoshi wants his coins so badly, then he can move them himself before they are destroyed.

What?
Course he want's them.
They are his.
Leave them alone.

[Wapinter]

If Satoshi wants his coins so badly, then he can move them himself before they are destroyed.

What?
Course he want's them.
They are his.
Leave them alone.

That right if he wants them he can move them to prevent their destruction.It is better to destroy them than those coins falling in wrong hands.Since these coins are not in circulation,their disappearance would not make any difference

[rizzlarolla]

If Satoshi wants his coins so badly, then he can move them himself before they are destroyed.

What?
Course he want's them.
They are his.
Leave them alone.

That right if he wants them he can move them to prevent their destruction.It is better to destroy them than those coins falling in wrong hands.Since these coins are not in circulation,their disappearance would not make any difference

They are not in circulation, they are in storage.
You wants Satoshi to moving them or loose them?

[Wapinter]

If Satoshi wants his coins so badly, then he can move them himself before they are destroyed.

What?
Course he want's them.
They are his.
Leave them alone.

That right if he wants them he can move them to prevent their destruction.It is better to destroy them than those coins falling in wrong hands.Since these coins are not in circulation,their disappearance would not make any difference

They are not in circulation, they are in storage.
You wants Satoshi to moving them or loose them?

I also said that they are not in circulation.
I dont want Satoshi to loose them but since Satoshi identity is not known we dont know if he is still alive or not.If he is alive and wants his coins, he can move them

[Jhanzo]

That right if he wants them he can move them to prevent their destruction.It is better to destroy them than those coins falling in wrong hands.Since these coins are not in circulation,their disappearance would not make any difference

They are not in circulation, they are in storage.
You wants Satoshi to moving them or loose them?

it seems you don't quite understand what theymos are proposing. he's talking about destroying all old coins that doesn't get moved after 5 years. if satoshi and other bitcoin owners move their coins before that time, their bitcoins won't be destroyed.
of course there are pros and cons of this. if satoshi move those coins, then those old coins will not be considered lost anymore. on the other hand, we'll know for sure that those coins won't be a problem if they get destroyed.

[alyssa85]

This would destroy bitcoin in a heartbeat. Lots of people buy BTC as a store of value and then put the keys in a safe - the Winklevii are an example, and there are loads with smaller savings too.

Who is to say whether coins are "lost" or merely stored. Putting arbitrary rules in such as "if you don't move them we'll destroy them" destroys the premise of bitcoin, which is that it is a safe store of value.

After all, what is the difference between a bank snatching your money in a bail in and self-appointed devs destroying your coins "to prevent inflation" in theymos' words?

[yayayo]

This is the first time I strongly have to disagree with Theymos. This is a centralized monetary intervention that would destroy trust in Bitcoin as a whole, because people will feel that their Bitcoin might be some day arbitrarily destroyed at developers' choosing. Long-term savings will become an unbearable risk.

Also the assumption is decidedly wrong: There is no inflation if Satoshi spends his coins, because the coins have already been generated. Everyone knows that they exist - they are already priced in. If Satoshi is an idiot and buys fiat with them, there might be a price drop in Bitcoin's fiat valuation. But this doesn't matter at all, if Bitcoin establishes itself as a fully working currency - meaning all prices will be quoted in BTC without conversion.

Interventionism is a disease that leads to greater problems than the ones it is designed to solve.

ya.ya.yo!

[CryptoDatabase]

This is like Paypal coming out and saying 'If you don't move your funds around we will just take them from you. If this is what Bitcoin is coming to be a part of then Bitcoin has lost its vision and only caters to those who are afraid of someone dumping them.

If you are so insecure about Bitcoin that you fear coins being dumped then it might be time for you to move to a different currency or come to the terms that it is a possibility and move on.

[Dr.Famous]

If this is what Bitcoin is coming to be a part of then Bitcoin has lost its vision and only caters to those who are afraid of someone dumping them.

Well said, A bad step to take. I Disagree with the step you are thinking to take in future @ Theymos.

[CjMapope]

let's also note i think this would be a safety to the future "Craig Wrights's"
if your gonna come out as satoshi, DO IT IN NEXT 5ish YEARS
shit or get off the pot type thing

[achow101]

That right if he wants them he can move them to prevent their destruction.It is better to destroy them than those coins falling in wrong hands.Since these coins are not in circulation,their disappearance would not make any difference

They are not in circulation, they are in storage.
You wants Satoshi to moving them or loose them?

it seems you don't quite understand what theymos are proposing. he's talking about destroying all old coins that doesn't get moved after 5 years. if satoshi and other bitcoin owners move their coins before that time, their bitcoins won't be destroyed.
of course there are pros and cons of this. if satoshi move those coins, then those old coins will not be considered lost anymore. on the other hand, we'll know for sure that those coins won't be a problem if they get destroyed.

Yes. It becomes a problem of would you rather give some people 1 million free bitcoin with little to no effort or have one guy lose the Bitcoin he hasn't touched (nor does he indicate that he will ever touch them) in over 15 years (by that point).

This is like Paypal coming out and saying 'If you don't move your funds around we will just take them from you. If this is what Bitcoin is coming to be a part of then Bitcoin has lost its vision and only caters to those who are afraid of someone dumping them.

If you are so insecure about Bitcoin that you fear coins being dumped then it might be time for you to move to a different currency or come to the terms that it is a possibility and move on.

The difference between this and PayPal is that PayPal will just take the funds and pocket them. Theymos' proposal makes it impossible for anyone to use those funds.

Also, as a side note, Theymos' proposal is pretty much impossible. It relies upon knowing that something will happen in the future at an exact moment, and this cannot be known both because such technology doesn't suddenly become cheap and usable like so overnight, and because such advancements cannot be known to happen on a certain date beforehand.

[AgentofCoin]

Theymos was providing an example of a way to deal with QC's cracking bitcoin addresses in the future.
It is assumed that by the time we reach that point, we will all have already converted to QC resistant cryptography.
Theymos was trying to troubleshoot how we will deal with the people/addresses that do not convert to QC resistant addresses.

This is not final and there may be better ideas in the future.

This is not an attack on Satoshi or etc, but on dead coins that QC will take from their owners one day.
Otherwise we would be allowing a single entity (potentially more) to hack and control all dead coins.

[alyssa85]

let's also note i think this would be a safety to the future "Craig Wrights's"
if your gonna come out as satoshi, DO IT IN NEXT 5ish YEARS
shit or get off the pot type thing

So, if Craig Wright is Satoshi, you believe he should be punished for creating bitcoin by having his coins destroyed, so that he has nothing to show for what is practically the tech innovation of the century - and if any innocent by-stander has longstanding coins, they should lose their money too, right?

Sheesh. Something has gone dreadfully wrong with the bitcoin community if it is now acceptable to arbitrarily destroy people's savings.

I read that thread on reddit - the most disturbing thing was where he said "This issue has been discussed for several years." They've been encouraging the public to see bitcoin as a store of value for years while simultaneously deciding that they should arbitrarily cancel people's coins to make themselves richer.

Wow, just wow.

[fenican]

Silly idea - Satoshi's coins are only about 5% of the eventual total and 6.5% of the current total. If Satoshi held 90% of the coins, there would be a systemic risk if he dumped them but 6.5% is fairly trivial. The impact would be comparable to Carl Icahn selling his Apple - a brief price dip as the markets absorb it followed by a return to normal market capitalization based on the aggregate value of the enterprise.

Some of the "all coins will eventually be lost" crowd might even appreciate another million or so to be put into circulation.

[alyssa85]

The difference between this and PayPal is that PayPal will just take the funds and pocket them. Theymos' proposal makes it impossible for anyone to use those funds.

So some early adopter decided to buy coins in 2011, and store them - and five years later, their coins are destroyed but they are supposed to be happy because their savings have evaporated instead of being appropriated?

It's like stealing someone's money, and then setting fire to it and saying, "See? I'm not going to use your money, I'm just destroying your savings, that makes me a good guy".

[johoe]

Note that he suggested a soft fork that activates after 5 years to make old coins unspendable, when/if it becomes clear that ecdsa is no longer secure enough in the long run.  So Satoshi and everyone else have plenty of time to save their coins.  When practical quantum computers arrive these old coins are not secure and everyone can take them.  Probably they will be taken before the soft fork activates.

You can disagree with his opinion, but his suggestion is certainly not as evil as the article make it sound.  Also the quote in the headline of the news article is not something he wrote.