Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed”

[fenican]

Another thing to note - there may be players bigger than Satoshi in the Bitcoin space. Some investor may have quietly acquired 40% of the float. With the ability to create new pseudo-anonymous addresses at will there would be no easy way to find who who is the richest Bitcoiner.

[MingLee]

Personally, I'm against the idea that Satoshi's coins should be destroyed, maybe a majority of them should but the genesis block should be left as a sort of symbolic thing. The wallet should be left alone aside from that, unless Satoshi really is prepared to reveal himself and send out a signed message to everyone so that we know he's still around.

The question becomes, though, how would we destroy his coins, based on where we are now? Unless there's a fork or something to invalidate those coins, I can't see a way that we could accomplish such a task.

[johoe]

BTW, if you still have old Franc notes from 2001.  They are worthless now, because you can't exchange them into Euro anymore.  It is estimated that the "destroyed" Francs would have been worth about half a billion Euro.

[CjMapope]

Personally, I'm against the idea that Satoshi's coins should be destroyed, maybe a majority of them should but the genesis block should be left as a sort of symbolic thing. The wallet should be left alone aside from that, unless Satoshi really is prepared to reveal himself and send out a signed message to everyone so that we know he's still around.

The question becomes, though, how would we destroy his coins, based on where we are now? Unless there's a fork or something to invalidate those coins, I can't see a way that we could accomplish such a task.

well the first 50 ever mined are kinda locked as a symbol (i believe these coins hold the famous satoshi "bailout" message)
this is thought to be a bug. noones knows if this was intentional of not

[alyssa85]

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.  

In fiat world, if you forget about an account, and haven't touched it in a while, you can still retrieve it. Money in "lost accounts" is yours by law no matter how many years you have waited to claim it. Ditto with bonds - it doesn't matter how many years ago you put the certificate in a drawer, if you produce it half a century later, you can redeem it.

Given that bitcoin has been classed by govts as an asset, the same laws will apply. If Blockstream cancel satoshi's coins, he should sue and take them for all they are worth.

[achow101]

well the first 50 ever mined are kinda locked as a symbol (i believe these coins hold the famous satoshi "bailout" message)
this is thought to be a bug. noones knows if this was intentional of not

I think it began as a bug since the transaction wasn't entered into the UTXO set. It has since become symbolic to not put it into the UTXO set.

[whored]

BTW, if you still have old Franc notes from 2001.  They are worthless now, because you can't exchange them into Euro anymore.  It is estimated that the "destroyed" Francs would have been worth about half a billion Euro.

That's what I say too. That satoshi character aught to know how unsafe it is to leave so much money on the blockchain without transacting with it, he should be protected from himself by someone wise, like Thermos.
Plus we'll never have to worry about him dumping a million BTC on the market again, a single individual shouldn't have that kind of power.
P.S. is there any way we could distribute those coin? Maybe hold a raffle?

[CjMapope]

well the first 50 ever mined are kinda locked as a symbol (i believe these coins hold the famous satoshi "bailout" message)
this is thought to be a bug. noones knows if this was intentional of not

I think it began as a bug since the transaction wasn't entered into the UTXO set. It has since become symbolic to not put it into the UTXO set.

ahh ok cool

and in your opinion was it intentional?   for sure hey? prob to lock in the bailout message for everyone to remember for all of BTC's eternity?

[achow101]

ahh ok cool

and in your opinion was it intentional?   for sure hey? prob to lock in the bailout message for everyone to remember for all of BTC's eternity?

I think it was partially intentional to say that there was no premine and that Bitcoin wasn't a scam to benefit satoshi. The bailout message would still be in the blockchain anyways even if the output was spent.

[CjMapope]

ahh ok cool

and in your opinion was it intentional?   for sure hey? prob to lock in the bailout message for everyone to remember for all of BTC's eternity?

The bailout message would still be in the blockchain anyways even if the output was spent.

o ok well that invalidates my question then, haha thx! as ya it wouldn't matter if it was intentional as you stated ;p the message is THERE.

[BurtW]

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.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

I'm keen on the raffle idea.

[achow101]

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.

Yes, this is exactly what Theymos proposed. When/If QC becomes a reality and After it is known to break ECDSA and After an immediate soft fork to add an OP_CODE for using a QC safe algorithm, then there is a planned soft fork for a future date immediate prior to the date where attackers would have a feasible chance of breaking ECDSA and stealing Bitcoin.

[gadman2]

Quit your complaining. Let the coins be. As soon as a single satoshi moves from any of those origin addresses then prices will hit rock bottom within minutes and we can all wine about this later.

[gentlemand]

I stuck some pin money in NEM at its earliest stages. As an original stakeholder you were obliged to reaffirm your stake pre launch otherwise you wouldn't receive any coins. This was shouted far and wide for months on end and the deadline was extended multiple times.

Despite that you have people surfacing a year and a bit later screaming about not knowing anything about this. I wonder how much screaming there'd be if this was implemented. I'm pretty amazed at how little attention a lot of people pay to these things.

[whored]

I'm keen on the raffle idea.

A million otherwise wasted coins that I can has. To hodl. And call my own.
Only let's do this now, preemptively, & not wait until it's too late, like we did with that blogsize thing.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Quit your complaining. Let the coins be. As soon as a single satoshi moves from any of those origin addresses then prices will hit rock bottom within minutes and we can all wine about this later.

[BurtW]

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

[Evildrum]

So we are planning to cut off his legs because he has become a potential liability! Interesting, but I do not like a idea of stripping people down because you feel they may be a issue later with the coins.
I get the issue, dislike the solution.

[GreenBits]

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.

Exactly. Why ass with his coins? While they do impose an inherent security risk, doesn't it fly in the spirit of bitcoin to essentially "regulate" someone's wallet? And how would it be clear if, when the coins moved, it can be attributed to a thief and not simply the owner of the coins?

Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Might give those coins an incentive to move if we keep talking about them.