Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed”

[GreenBits]

can anyone give a quick explanation or a link to help me understand what exactly is QC and QC resistant address that i keep hearing about this subject?

QC = Quantum Computing or Quantum Computer

Hypothetically if QC ever becomes a threat to the current signature algorithm used by Bitcoin (elliptical curve) then a different signature algorithm could be phased in to hypothetically create new addresses types that would be more resistant to being hacked by QC, hence "QC resistant addresses".  Everyone would then be encourage to move their coins from their current addresses (type 1xxxx and 3xxxxx) to these hypothetically created new addresses and then their coins would be safe from being hacked by a QC.

Current generation of QC can do only very menial things like factor a two digit number.  In other words QC is barely in its infancy.  It is extremely difficult to do and will take years if not decades to create a machines capable of cracking elliptical curve signatures.

Just google "bitcoin quantum computing" either here on this forum or on the internet in general.  There are dozens of thread on this subject here on this forum.

So true. When I heard about IBMs cloud quantum computer I freaked out, thinking the public would finally have a way to brute force into standard bitcoin wallets. Then I actually found out what 5 qubits worth of qc is worth towards that end (not too much) and realized q computing has a veeeery long way to go before it poses that type of threat.

Now DWave might figure something out given more time.. We will see.

[BurtW]

With all the drama raging, everyone already at each other's throats, why would someone bring up quantum computers breaking Bitcoin and start talking about destroying Satoshi's coins?
Help me out with this

I have been here a pretty long time and if you stick around you will discover the following to be absolutely true:

    Bitcoin == Drama

It was true when I joined, it has been true the entire time I have been involved.

That is what makes it fun.

[alyssa85]

With all the drama raging, everyone already at each other's throats, why would someone bring up quantum computers breaking Bitcoin and start talking about destroying Satoshi's coins?
Help me out with this

For some reason there is hostility developing towards Satoshi. Which is incredible because without him, there would be no cryptocurrency.

Makes you wonder what would happen if Christ returned - I expect he'd be lynched and crucified in a jiffy by all his loyal supporters.

[sockpuppet1]

With all the drama raging, everyone already at each other's throats, why would someone bring up quantum computers breaking Bitcoin and start talking about destroying Satoshi's coins?
Help me out with this

Maybe theymos was actually using reverse psychology to make a hidden point. That could be he is ridiculing those who say there might be a potential but unproven back door in Bitcoin, by pointing out that such unproven FUD would justify stealing Satoshi's coins in advance to prevent the hacker from causing havoc.

Perhaps he is slyly trying to refute my hypothesizing about a back door in Bitcoin (but my technical argument was not about a quantum computing attack).

[Lauda]

People need to calm down. It seems like the article is fabricate and that the quote is a lie.

Bitcoin == Drama

It does seem like the ecosystem is slowly transforming to 'DramaLand'.

I think that these coins and everyone's coins should be left as they are, if people want to store them away for 20 years then they should have that choice.

Indeed. What's to prevent this from happening from someone else's coins?
Updated post.

Edit: To be absolutely clear: I am not proposing (and would never propose) a policy that would have the goal of depriving anyone of his bitcoins. Satoshi's bitcoins (which number far below 1M, I think) rightfully belong to him, and he can do whatever he wants with them. Even if I wanted to destroy Satoshi's bitcoins in particular, it's not possible to identify which bitcoins are Satoshi's. I am talking about destroying presumably-lost coins that are going to be stolen, ideally just moments before the theft would occur.

[AGD]

With all the drama raging, everyone already at each other's throats, why would someone bring up quantum computers breaking Bitcoin and start talking about destroying Satoshi's coins?
Help me out with this

For some reason there is hostility developing towards Satoshi. Which is incredible because without him, there would be no cryptocurrency.

Makes you wonder what would happen if Christ returned - I expect he'd be lynched and crucified in a jiffy by all his loyal supporters.

And they would take his gold coins to ensure nobody else will steal them.

[sgravina]

Satoshi's coins are already destroyed.  When Satoshi got sick and was hospitalized his mom got rid of his computers, she never liked them.  Satoshi is OK now but he doesn't have any of the private keys.

[lolxxxx]

Breaking Bitcoin Address Encryption

Well this is not looking good if they just broke the  ECDSA-protected bitcoin addresses then everything is done. Many people will lose their faith in bitcoin . So i think this is not the good idea of destroying the bitcoins of Satoshi also i don't understand what kind of threat we will face from Bitcoins of Satoshi ? He is the owner at least we should allow him to use his coins ?

[knowhow]

Well i see no use to get those coins destroyed when those coins could be used to sponsor a program that saves people,like doctors without borders that is doing an amazing work and always need support,soo i dont see the why would this coins being destroyed an option,would be better it changes hands and support something .

[iCEBREAKER]

    Bitcoin == Drama

It was true when I joined, it has been true the entire time I have been involved.

That is what makes it fun.

Can confirm; came for the liberation technology, stayed for the endless popcorn.

[leopard2]

destroying anyones Bitcoins poses much more of a threat than someone dumping Satoshis coins (how, and where, would anyone be able to do that, huh?)

Maybe Satoshi is in jail in some fucked-up country? Maybe if he gets out in 10 years, he wants his digital stash?

I do see the security issue; the question is how that could be fixed without destroying coins.

It should work like this: coins that have been moved are more secure...those that dont have been moved are less secure...but they are not destroyed. It should be up to everyone to decide whether to move their coins to new, better protected addresses or not. 

[TKeenan]

It should work like this: coins that have been moved are more secure...those that dont have been moved are less secure...but they are not destroyed. It should be up to everyone to decide whether to move their coins to new, better protected addresses or not.  

I for one, don't want to see Theymos lose any of his coins.  Those coins are likely to be stolen any minute.  Theymos doesn't handle his keys respectfully enough and some bad guy is likely to just get in there and take his coins.  For his own protection, we should all just take Theymos' coins from him and put them somewhere 'safe'.  Or, we could just destroy his coins so they can't be stolen.  Either way, Theymos needs and deserves this protection.

[Searing]

destroying anyones Bitcoins poses much more of a threat than someone dumping Satoshis coins (how, and where, would anyone be able to do that, huh?)

Maybe Satoshi is in jail in some fucked-up country? Maybe if he gets out in 10 years, he wants his digital stash?

I do see the security issue; the question is how that could be fixed without destroying coins.

It should work like this: coins that have been moved are more secure...those that dont have been moved are less secure...but they are not destroyed. It should be up to everyone to decide whether to move their coins to new, better protected addresses or not. 

My view is if he WAS Japanese...Satoshi..the Earthquake in Japan wiped out a lot of folk in the coastal cities (not sure of timeline) my guess...but whole communities of 30k plus gone.

Would be a bummer if there is a Tulip Trust of BTC that becomes available in 20/20 and say Craig Wright was part of the group (again imho) that setup such...say that consisted

of that Dave K guy (who passed) and Hal Finney (who passed) ...if he is the last guy to have access to that ..he seems pretty pissed and could flush it all and BTC with it.

(Satoshi or part of the group there of ..in full Anarchist Mode....sheesh .....Wikipedia from then on would list the Tulip Panic and Bitcoin Panic on the same frigging page

forever into the future as a cautionary tale if that was to happen)

shudder....scared myself

But to topic.....naw should not be destroyed is probably 1) lost 2) lost due to Satoshi passing (at least on very early early keys when worth little) 3) Satoshi is the "Green Hornet" and does not need the $$$$

[ranochigo]

Breaking Bitcoin Address Encryption

Well this is not looking good if they just broke the  ECDSA-protected bitcoin addresses then everything is done. Many people will lose their faith in bitcoin . So i think this is not the good idea of destroying the bitcoins of Satoshi also i don't understand what kind of threat we will face from Bitcoins of Satoshi ? He is the owner at least we should allow him to use his coins ?

A better idea would be to do a fork if you want to retrieve some coins which is what most would not agree on. The coins could get stolen if quantum computing becomes a reality nevertheless. If someone does gain access to majority of the coins, they can do anything with it and manipulate the market. However, I doubt that Bitcoin would be the first to get cracked if quantum computing becomes a reality.

[pereira4]

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.

I think there is a problem: the first keys of the first year or something, are not safe from QC attacks because they were signed in a different way. QC attacks are not a problem in addresses created after 2012 or something like that. I don't know the details but I know the QC attack only applies for old addresses that never reused addresses. Of course we should look for a way to make all addresses ever QC resistant and not have to resort to destroying coins which is like the last step one should take. In fact, I argue that maybe it's better that those coins stay where they are and if they get hacked and stolen then so be it, bad luck for the owner, he should have put some attention and he had a decade to do so. Of course, if the owner died, then the coins will eventually get hacked no matter what.

[Lauda]

Satoshi's coins are already destroyed.  When Satoshi got sick and was hospitalized his mom got rid of his computers, she never liked them.  Satoshi is OK now but he doesn't have any of the private keys.

Even if this "story" was true, i.e. it actually happened, the coins would not be destroyed. You didn't even read the article nor previous posts.

Well this is not looking good if they just broke the  ECDSA-protected bitcoin addresses then everything is done.

Wrong. The algorithm used can always be changed.

[Ultrafinery]

Well this is not looking good if they just broke the  ECDSA-protected bitcoin addresses then everything is done.

Wrong. The algorithm used can always be changed.

Sure, but how many years would that take? Considering the blitzkrieg speed of scaling?

[thejaytiesto]

Satoshi's coins are already destroyed.  When Satoshi got sick and was hospitalized his mom got rid of his computers, she never liked them.  Satoshi is OK now but he doesn't have any of the private keys.

Even if this "story" was true, i.e. it actually happened, the coins would not be destroyed. You didn't even read the article nor previous posts.

Well this is not looking good if they just broke the  ECDSA-protected bitcoin addresses then everything is done.

Wrong. The algorithm used can always be changed.

Is it possible to do that tho, to already existing addresses? Then why is theymos even considering to delete the coins instead of changing the algorithm? that's stupid. If changing the algorithm solves the problem, I dont understand why theymos said it would be a good idea to destroy the coins. I don't think theymos would say this out of nowhere, so there must be an explanation. In any case, I don't think there will ever be a consensus reached to destroy coins, most people dont like the idea and would rather see the coins hacked than destroyed.

[digaran]

Is there any way to know when a coin was generated in block chain? if so then should make it so oldest coins if ever were to be moved more miner fee would be taken from it.
Like when you punch hole a dollar bill, still has value for that enables the central bank to print new ones.
Point is if you have the coins from old blocks of the chain value decreases, since transaction fee increases.
However I'm not sure if coins in block chain could be time stamped.? huuuh?

[NeuroticFish]

“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?

There were a lot of "good reasons" publicized behind stealing the property of the other during history. Whatever good were or not those reasons, I still call it stealing.

I'm sure that plenty of people has various "alarms" that'll "ring" if any coin is moved away from Satoshi's wallets. The ones fearing a dump, will dump. The rest will continue buying, holding or spending their BTC as usual. The price will be affected only for short term. So the price is not a good reason. It's a greedy reason.
Others fear those wallets will be hacked. Hmm.. the consensus was that Bitcoin is safe from hacking.

So, back to the subject. There are no valid reasons to steal (and dispose) somebody else's property. None at all.