Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed”

[cjmoles]

the integrity of the ledger == the value of its component entries

Smile

A box full of component watch parts != device to tell the time.

&&

A box full of component watch parts == broken watch!

[1715345456]

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[BurtW]

I guess that did not come out the way I intended it.  Perhaps this is more accurate:

the value of the component entries = f(the integrity of the ledger)

[cjmoles]

I guess that did not come out the way I intended it.  Perhaps this is more accurate:

the value of the component entries = f(the integrity of the ledger)

^{block height btc sum}
 Σn (USD conversion rate) = Total Ledger Value in USD
_{n = first block btc sum}

However

Once that series is broken, so is the integrity of the summation.  So, if we regard the process by which the ledger is assembled (an interconnected series of economically irreversible transactions) then we could assume that the chain's integrity would be comparatively compromised by removing some links.  The integral virtue of the block chain is that it provides a "trustless" accounting system.  It was designed to be economically infeasible to alter the contents of the ledger.  So, by the "integrity of the ledger," I am referring to its immutability.  

[jbreher]

his suggestion is certainly not as evil as the article make it sound.  

It is absolutely evil. It proposes that the collective has a greater claim on one's bitcoin than the owner himself.

If there is a risk of early hashless-address bitcoin being stolen by advances in cryptanalysis, the only party that has a legitimate right to manage that risk is the owner of those bitcoins.

Fucking period.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.

[jbreher]

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.

That is by no means universal. 'Round these parts (CO, USA), if your bank account sits dormant long enough, agents of the state show up at your bank and confiscate its contents. They claim this is a legitimate power of the state. Or, The State.

This is only one of the many ways in which bitcoin _should_ distinguish itself from fiat.

[ebliever]

his suggestion is certainly not as evil as the article make it sound.  

It is absolutely evil. It proposes that the collective has a greater claim on one's bitcoin than the owner himself.

If there is a risk of early hashless-address bitcoin being stolen by advances in cryptanalysis, the only party that has a legitimate right to manage that risk is the owner of those bitcoins.

Fucking period.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.

The problem is you are responding to the bogus OP, while the rest of us are, more or less, dealing more accurately with theymos' position:

When this topic first came up I assumed it was a prank or vicious smear against Theymos or something.

It is... The bitcoin.com article is full of lies, and the headline quote is a complete fabrication.

I really dislike the idea that a bitcoin investor has to keep up to speed with changes in the protocol or risk losing their investment.

That's just the nature of Bitcoin. It's pretty experimental still. Everyone's always known that Bitcoin's ECDSA will be utterly broken if anyone builds a sufficiently large quantum computer. When/if that happens, people who aren't paying attention are either going to have their coins stolen, or (as I did propose) the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen if the owner fails to secure them. (I absolutely did not propose targeting Satoshi's coins in particular, and my proposal would be a one-time response to the unusual and very serious issue of millions of coins becoming insecure at the same time.)

Maybe if I repost this a dozen more times people will stop reacting to the OP?

[respawn2]

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.

That is by no means universal. 'Round these parts (CO, USA), if your bank account sits dormant long enough, agents of the state show up at your bank and confiscate its contents. They claim this is a legitimate power of the state. Or, The State.

You mean they take away your money and you can't get it back? How long is "long enough"?

@ebliever: "the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen if the owner fails to secure them." seems fine to you?
I'm betting your coins are going to be stolen soon anyways, mind if I destroy them now?

[ebliever]

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.

That is by no means universal. 'Round these parts (CO, USA), if your bank account sits dormant long enough, agents of the state show up at your bank and confiscate its contents. They claim this is a legitimate power of the state. Or, The State.

You mean they take away your money and you can't get it back? How long is "long enough"?

@ebliever: "the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen if the owner fails to secure them." seems fine to you?
I'm betting your coins are going to be stolen soon anyways, mind if I destroy them now?

In context, people would have plenty of opportunity and warning - as much as can be arranged - to take action to update their coins. Destroying the non-updated coins would be a last-ditch effort before they became vulnerable to theft, only affecting coins that no one cared enough, or knew about, to update them. The choice here is between destroying coins or letting thieves have them, not a choice between letting an owner keep them or lose them. The original owner would be losing them one way or another at this point anyway.

People are being really dumb about this, because of the OP. I had a similar reaction at the outset, but I hope once people grasp the context they'll stop attacking a caricature. There are lots of things to be concerned about in the bitcoin ecosystem. Losing your coins because theymos or anyone else is plotting to destroy them is not one of them.

[respawn2]

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.

That is by no means universal. 'Round these parts (CO, USA), if your bank account sits dormant long enough, agents of the state show up at your bank and confiscate its contents. They claim this is a legitimate power of the state. Or, The State.

You mean they take away your money and you can't get it back? How long is "long enough"?

@ebliever: "the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen if the owner fails to secure them." seems fine to you?
I'm betting your coins are going to be stolen soon anyways, mind if I destroy them now?

In context, people would have plenty of opportunity and warning - as much as can be arranged - to take action to update their coins. Destroying the non-updated coins would be a last-ditch effort before they became vulnerable to theft, only affecting coins that no one cared enough, or knew about, to update them. The choice here is between destroying coins or letting thieves have them, not a choice between letting an owner keep them or lose them. The original owner would be losing them one way or another at this point anyway.

I don't want destroying coins to be an option, period. That's the antithesis of Bitcoin.
I don't care if someone decides that I didn't secure them well enough. They're mine. To do with as I chose, even ifthat happens to be nothing at all. Even if that means leaving them unsecured, dumping them for pennies on the dollar, or giving them to a wino to sell for hooch: not up to theymos to decide.

I also don't want anyone to kill me, even if they feel that "I'm gonna die soon anyway." In particular, I don't want that decision to be made by some kid I don't know from a hole in the wall.
I hope you understand.

[jbreher]

If anything like this did happen AND coconscious implemented it (no chance), once the media got ahold of it, bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general is done for.

Reuters - 2021:

"Bitcoin, a virtual currency known to use cryptography to protect users funds, has now officially been broken. Thousands of users lost over 15 billion USD in funds when a Quantum Computer broke the ECDSA scheme which is used for the public/private key pairs. Bitcoin core developers were unable to comment at the time of the hack".


Having every mainstream news saying bitcoin was broken and people are losing money is worse than a 2mn coin hack-and-dump (whether slow or fast dump).

Compared to the above scenario, being prepared to move coins to safe addresses, giving a long time to do so and then taking other measures like freezing pubkey coins, is not a bad alternative.

You are asserting a false equivalency. We can indeed move those willing onto a new cryptographic underpinning without stealing the funds from those who would prefer not to move their coins.

[jbreher]

his suggestion is certainly not as evil as the article make it sound.  

It is absolutely evil. It proposes that the collective has a greater claim on one's bitcoin than the owner himself.

If there is a risk of early hashless-address bitcoin being stolen by advances in cryptanalysis, the only party that has a legitimate right to manage that risk is the owner of those bitcoins.

Fucking period.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.

The problem is you are responding to the bogus OP, while the rest of us are, more or less, dealing more accurately with theymos' position:

When this topic first came up I assumed it was a prank or vicious smear against Theymos or something.

It is... The bitcoin.com article is full of lies, and the headline quote is a complete fabrication.

I really dislike the idea that a bitcoin investor has to keep up to speed with changes in the protocol or risk losing their investment.

That's just the nature of Bitcoin. It's pretty experimental still. Everyone's always known that Bitcoin's ECDSA will be utterly broken if anyone builds a sufficiently large quantum computer. When/if that happens, people who aren't paying attention are either going to have their coins stolen, or (as I did propose) the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen if the owner fails to secure them. (I absolutely did not propose targeting Satoshi's coins in particular, and my proposal would be a one-time response to the unusual and very serious issue of millions of coins becoming insecure at the same time.)

Maybe if I repost this a dozen more times people will stop reacting to the OP?

Your assertion is absolutely FALSE. I am responding directly to theymos' evil proposition - that coins legitimately belonging to someone -- or with no way of knowing whether or not they legitimately belong to someone (which from an ethical standpoint is exactly the same thing) -- should be stolen and burned by the collective at some (unknowable) time before some nefarious actor manages to steal them for his/her own.

Why don't *you* read what *I* wrote, eh?

Did you somehow miss this little bit that theymos has re-asserted? Even though you yourself quoted it?

(as I did propose) the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen

Nobody has a right (and the collective is just another nobody) to destroy coins they do not themselves own. Fucking period. The fact that they are subsequently destroyed does not magically render it 'not-theft'.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.

[jbreher]

You mean they take away your money and you can't get it back? How long is "long enough"?

Yes. I forget the specifics, but I seem to recall it being somewhere in the 3-5 year range.

[cjmoles]

his suggestion is certainly not as evil as the article make it sound.  

It is absolutely evil. It proposes that the collective has a greater claim on one's bitcoin than the owner himself.

If there is a risk of early hashless-address bitcoin being stolen by advances in cryptanalysis, the only party that has a legitimate right to manage that risk is the owner of those bitcoins.

Fucking period.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.

The problem is you are responding to the bogus OP, while the rest of us are, more or less, dealing more accurately with theymos' position:

When this topic first came up I assumed it was a prank or vicious smear against Theymos or something.

It is... The bitcoin.com article is full of lies, and the headline quote is a complete fabrication.

I really dislike the idea that a bitcoin investor has to keep up to speed with changes in the protocol or risk losing their investment.

That's just the nature of Bitcoin. It's pretty experimental still. Everyone's always known that Bitcoin's ECDSA will be utterly broken if anyone builds a sufficiently large quantum computer. When/if that happens, people who aren't paying attention are either going to have their coins stolen, or (as I did propose) the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen if the owner fails to secure them. (I absolutely did not propose targeting Satoshi's coins in particular, and my proposal would be a one-time response to the unusual and very serious issue of millions of coins becoming insecure at the same time.)

Maybe if I repost this a dozen more times people will stop reacting to the OP?

Your assertion is absolutely FALSE. I am responding directly to theymos' evil proposition - that coins legitimately belonging to someone -- or with no way of knowing whether or not they legitimately belong to someone (which from an ethical standpoint is exactly the same thing) -- should be stolen and burned by the collective at some (unknowable) time before some nefarious actor manages to steal them for his/her own.

Why don't *you* read what *I* wrote, eh?

Did you somehow miss this little bit that theymos has re-asserted? Even though you yourself quoted it?

(as I did propose) the coins will be destroyed slightly before they would've been stolen

Nobody has a right (and the collective is just another nobody) to destroy coins they do not themselves own. Fucking period. The fact that they are subsequently destroyed does not magically render it 'not-theft'.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.

^^ This has been my sentiment too.  However, I took a different approach to expressing that opinion....I think that I like the above means of expression better.  I imagine a red-faced-finger-pointing soldier ready to slap the taste out of anybody's mouth who crosses him....I'm bandwagoning the sentiment!

[BurtW]

I understand jbreher's philosophical position and agree.

I would also like to reiterate my pragmatic position.  The worst case scenario is that about 1M (yes I pulled that number out of my ass) coins get stolen by an entity who has access to and pays for a QC to break all the addresses.  Then this party dumps them all on the market hoping to sell them all before the price of BTC tanks due to everyone noticing the theft.  Of course the theft and dump would be noticed.  The price would crash.  Since they are trying to dump all those coins at once they will most likely get caught.

Those of us who do not panic will buy up coins at the bottom and ride them as they price recovers.

All the remaining QC vulnerable coins are moved to new QC hardened addresses by those that either sell them in the panic or move them for safety.

End result:

Culprits probably caught.
A bunch of people panic and lose a lot of money.
Another bunch of people take advantage of the buying opportunity and make a lot of profit.
The price recovers once the dust clears and all/most the coins are on QC resistant addresses.

And that is the worst case scenario if we simply implement the new QC resistant addresses when needed and drop this whole idea of destroying coins.

[ebliever]

BurtW, you might want to consider the example of Vericoin. Vericoin had a market cap of around $6 million when Mintpal was hacked and 30% of all Vericoin was stolen. The devs orchestrated a rollback of the blockchain to cancel the theft. Despite this defeat of the thieves, the coin lost a tremendous percentage of its value in the ensuing uproar, and although it has recovered a bit since then it is nowhere near the $6M figure.

So your last bullet point, I think, is unlikely. After such a dramatic event the price would probably be permanently impaired, and be at a small fraction of its prior price for a good while. And that means there are a lot more losers than winners.

I still think people are failing to address the topic Theymos raised, and are instead substituting their own vision for the example he was giving. People keep talking about "their" coins and not having them stolen. But in the actual example, the only coins affected are those that have been for all practical purposes abandoned - and WILL be stolen. If you care about your coins, as each of you has demonstrated, you wouldn't be falling into the category of those at risk. By all means, this whole subject should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. But it's pollyanish to think that if such a situation arose that having a huge fraction of coins fall into the hands of thieves eager to dispose of them would be a neutral or transient event.

The irony here is that, concerned about the value of your coins, many of you are staking out a position that would destroy the value of those coins if such an event came to pass.

[ebliever]

Another historical example that comes to mind is the Great Depression. A large fraction of banks failed in the U.S., with depositors losing all their money. In the aftermath of that disaster safeguards such as the FDIC were instituted, insuring the funds of individuals in bankrupt banks so that people no longer lost their savings when a bank went under.

Despite this extremely successful safeguard, for the rest of their lives huge numbers of people flat out refused to entrust banks with their savings. I was a financial planner for a bit back in the early 90's and heard many accounts of how older people who remembered that era were still, right up to the 90's, refusing to trust the banks or deal with them.

So the notion that a QC breach and subsequent theft of a million or millions of bitcoins would be a transient event strikes me as completely contrary to historical example on two counts. On the contrary I think it would deeply scar people's psyches, even if they rationally "knew" that the issue had been fixed with new algorithms, etc.

[Dr.Osh]

it is a bad idea. currently very many people who changed his life because bitcoin, I guess if it was to do, and because the price of bitcoin unstable, I think that thinking is very wrong. no matter what price and who made bitcoin, but if it really can make a lot of people's lives turn into to something better, then there is no reason to be destroyed bitcoin

[lumeire]

Another historical example that comes to mind is the Great Depression. A large fraction of banks failed in the U.S., with depositors losing all their money. In the aftermath of that disaster safeguards such as the FDIC were instituted, insuring the funds of individuals in bankrupt banks so that people no longer lost their savings when a bank went under.

Despite this extremely successful safeguard, for the rest of their lives huge numbers of people flat out refused to entrust banks with their savings. I was a financial planner for a bit back in the early 90's and heard many accounts of how older people who remembered that era were still, right up to the 90's, refusing to trust the banks or deal with them.

So the notion that a QC breach and subsequent theft of a million or millions of bitcoins would be a transient event strikes me as completely contrary to historical example on two counts. On the contrary I think it would deeply scar people's psyches, even if they rationally "knew" that the issue had been fixed with new algorithms, etc.

Well in this case, theft of the contents of that wallet will probably lead to in the worst case, the death of btc. I'm not talking about releasing millions of BTCBTCBTC in the market I meant the trust over bitcoin's security. IMO that wallet's private key is long lost and in the case a theft would occur it would mean there's a loophole in the network.

[jbreher]

But in the actual example, the only coins affected are those that have been for all practical purposes abandoned - and WILL be stolen.

Bull-fucking-shit. You ('you' being anyone or any group of people) have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not those coins are abandoned. You also have no way of knowing when or even if they will be stolen.

Again, in case you are still blind to the moral principle, the only person who has a legitimate claim on managing the risk is the owner of the coins themselves. Any lesser standard is simply theft.

[cjmoles]

Another historical example that comes to mind is the Great Depression. A large fraction of banks failed in the U.S., with depositors losing all their money. In the aftermath of that disaster safeguards such as the FDIC were instituted, insuring the funds of individuals in bankrupt banks so that people no longer lost their savings when a bank went under.

Despite this extremely successful safeguard, for the rest of their lives huge numbers of people flat out refused to entrust banks with their savings. I was a financial planner for a bit back in the early 90's and heard many accounts of how older people who remembered that era were still, right up to the 90's, refusing to trust the banks or deal with them.

So the notion that a QC breach and subsequent theft of a million or millions of bitcoins would be a transient event strikes me as completely contrary to historical example on two counts. On the contrary I think it would deeply scar people's psyches, even if they rationally "knew" that the issue had been fixed with new algorithms, etc.

Yes...It probably would effect the exchange rate.  However, if the controlling premises of the project were violated, then that would damage it more.  The vast majority of users moved to bitcoin because of the belief that no governing organization had the power to manipulate the ledger.  If it came to pass one day that ledger entries could be removed at any given time, then committing any type of resources to the security of the ledger would be meaningless.  The ledger should be locked down and only those that control the private key should have the power to manipulate the funds on the ledger....period.  If a hacker got my private keys, then they have the power to move my coin according to the rules.  If my private keys were somehow compromised, that's my problem....They're my keys, it's my coin, so it's my responsibility....not anybody else's.

To say it bluntly, the system would be broken and meaningless if any group (government <=> community<=> third party) had the power to erase entries on the ledger.  It was intended to be immutable and that is evidenced in the very first block with Satoshi's citation: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." That was placed there to signify the date of the first entry in a chain of immutable entries. Think about what that means. Nobody (even if it's EVERYBODY) should have the ability to prune the ledger for any reason at any time....forever. That would be an attack on the system!

Consequently, if the chain could be pruned at will, then that removes the huge potential of using the block chain to secure patents, record contracts, time lock funds, test reputation, validate identification....etc  It's not just a question of how many dollars one can exchange for their bitcoin on the market at any given time....it's much larger!  Contrary to popular belief, the block chain is far more valuable then it's measure in fiat!