Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed”

[arcanaaerobics]

Why instead of destroying those coins, why doesn't Satoshi distribute them in giveaways or for bitcoin related work ?
I maybe not the first person to come with this idea, but I think the destruction of a big portion of bitcoins will make it seem worthless to the general public eye as even its creator is not holding the coins he mined.
Don't forget the general people have a different view than ours in regard to cryptocurrency. Take this analogy as an example: consider a man from the amazon who has no idea about paper money and he sees someone burning a $100 banknote, what would he think ? he would think it is not worth more than the wood he burns to worm himself, that's how those who don't understand Satoshi's view will think when they hear he burned the coins he mined.
Just my thought, nothing else, no intent to make any statement on the intelligence of those who didn't embrace cryptocurrency.

[Wapinter]

A noob's question : is it possible for collective to destroy someone's bitcoin kept in a safe wallet? if yes,isn't it makes bitcoin totally unreliable

[arcanaaerobics]

A noob's question : is it possible for collective to destroy someone's bitcoin kept in a safe wallet? if yes,isn't it makes bitcoin totally unreliable

I think the bitcoins are destroyed in case of 2 scenarios:

A- You lose all access to a wallet that contains bitcoins like lost private keys, password, or anything that make sit impossible to recover the bitcoins from it
B- You send the bitcoins to a non existing wallet address, those bitcoins will stay in limbo forever and will never be recovered.

Now my turn to a question, in the case B, would it possible that the non existing wallet address comes to existance and receives the bitcoins ? like say I sent 1 BTC to an address that did not exist in 2012 and thought it lost, but in 2018 that address is generated by a wallet, will it receive the 1 BTC I sent back in 2012 ?

[BurtW]

I think the bitcoins are destroyed in case of 2 scenarios:

A- You lose all access to a wallet that contains bitcoins like lost private keys, password, or anything that make sit impossible to recover the bitcoins from it
B- You send the bitcoins to a non existing wallet address, those bitcoins will stay in limbo forever and will never be recovered.

Now my turn to a question, in the case B, would it possible that the non existing wallet address comes to existance and receives the bitcoins ? like say I sent 1 BTC to an address that did not exist in 2012 and thought it lost, but in 2018 that address is generated by a wallet, will it receive the 1 BTC I sent back in 2012 ?

Short answer no.  To find the long answer search for "Bitcoin address collision" and read the thousands of threads on that subject.

[pereira4]

Why instead of destroying those coins, why doesn't Satoshi distribute them in giveaways or for bitcoin related work ?
I maybe not the first person to come with this idea, but I think the destruction of a big portion of bitcoins will make it seem worthless to the general public eye as even its creator is not holding the coins he mined.
Don't forget the general people have a different view than ours in regard to cryptocurrency. Take this analogy as an example: consider a man from the amazon who has no idea about paper money and he sees someone burning a $100 banknote, what would he think ? he would think it is not worth more than the wood he burns to worm himself, that's how those who don't understand Satoshi's view will think when they hear he burned the coins he mined.
Just my thought, nothing else, no intent to make any statement on the intelligence of those who didn't embrace cryptocurrency.

We dont know if satoshi is even alive. You are talking as if satoshi is even a single guy, or if it was a single guy, that he is still in control of his keys (that he didn't lose his keys) or if he is held hostage, or if like I said before, if he is even alive at all...
We don't know who controls those coins anymore, but sure, we should not destroy them. If they get hacked, then so be it.

[LiskCryptoFan]

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.

If you have a mic, it needs to be dropped.

[BurtW]

A noob's question : is it possible for collective to destroy someone's bitcoin kept in a safe wallet? if yes,isn't it makes bitcoin totally unreliable

Answer no, it is not possible to destroy someone else's Bitcoins.  Of course if you decide to you can destroy your own Bitcoins.

This thread is asking the question "are there any circumstances in which this capability to collectively destroy Bitcoins should be implemented?"

My (and many others) answer:  No, there is never a situation in which this capability should be implemented and even if someone tried to implement it the implementation would fail to be accepted by a majority so, no it should not be implemented and it will never be implemented.

Your question:

if yes,isn't it makes bitcoin totally unreliable

Is exactly on point.  See my next post.

[andulolika]

Bitcoins of satoshi should stay where they are for few reasons that could be key in a future.
Edit: yet i still dont understand how would they erase them lol, thermos-delirium.

[mindrust]

AM i missing something?

How could someone destroy someone's coins in the first place?

I wouldn't let Theymos, or any other person (Barack Obama included) to destroy my coins if i were Satoshi, Or if i were me (which is the case at the moment).

[BurtW]

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.

Thank you for bringing this up.  This is the perfect example of exactly what I am talking about and the perfect example of why not to ever destroy coins or roll back transactions.

The reason Vericoin never recovered is that you can never trust a coin that rolls back transactions - it is the loss of trust that killed the long term acceptance of the coin, not the theft.

Theft of coins:  the person who lost the coins lost, sure.  The person who stole the coins gains, sure.  The market reacts to the dump of coins.  Then, the market rebounds back to its original value because faith in the coin itself it not lost.  The exchange where the coins were stolen hopefully goes out of business since people lost all faith in its ability to keep their coins safe.

OR

Roll back transaction:  the person who lost the coins gets them back, sure.  The person who stole the coins gets nothing, sure.  The market reacts to the loss of faith in the coin.  The market never recovers and (almost) everyone has a loss.

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.

Not true, sure there are the signature spammers who come in here and dump their shit.  But ignoring them the rest of the people know exactly what this is about.  They disagree with Theymos on philosophical or practical grounds.

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.

Not true.  Our concern for the long term viability of Bitcoin is exactly why we take our position.

[David Rabahy]

0) I care most about eternal life; as such I don't see where the topic of old Bitcoin private keys matters much.

1) Within this pre-eternal lifetime, I do care some about my Bitcoins; are they vulnerable?  Can one imagine a quantum computer (or anything else) that could crack my private keys?  If so then when (the sooner, the better) should we develop a system that can resist it?  It seems to me it will take an active step to migrate to it.  After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

[BurtW]

0) I care most about eternal life; as such I don't see where the topic of old Bitcoin private keys matters much.

1) Within this pre-eternal lifetime, I do care some about my Bitcoins; are they vulnerable?  Can one imagine a quantum computer (or anything else) that could crack my private keys?  If so then when (the sooner, the better) should we develop a system that can resist it?  It seems to me it will take an active step to migrate to it.  After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

Off topic crap aside, No, you are wrong.  It is not possible to do what you suggest here:

After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

without changing/breaking what Bitcoin is and what it stands for.  Doing what you suggest would permanently harm Bitcoin.

This part can easily be done and will definitely be done (eventually):

Can one imagine a quantum computer (or anything else) that could crack my private keys?  If so then when (the sooner, the better) should we develop a system that can resist it?  It seems to me it will take an active step to migrate to it.

[BurtW]

AM i missing something?

Every time you post shit like this into a thread without reading it yes, you miss a lot.  Go back and actually read the thread and then you will not miss anything.

[andulolika]

0) I care most about eternal life; as such I don't see where the topic of old Bitcoin private keys matters much.

1) Within this pre-eternal lifetime, I do care some about my Bitcoins; are they vulnerable?  Can one imagine a quantum computer (or anything else) that could crack my private keys?  If so then when (the sooner, the better) should we develop a system that can resist it?  It seems to me it will take an active step to migrate to it.  After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

Off topic crap aside, No, you are wrong.  It is not possible to do what you suggest without changing/breaking what Bitcoin is and what it stands for.  Doing what you suggest would permanently harm Bitcoin.

Why would it break btc to go to sha 512 or such? Not sure if thats possible but im pretty sure it would be necessary after a while.

[BurtW]

Why would it break btc to go to sha 512 or such? Not sure if thats possible but im pretty sure it would be necessary after a while.

Changing the cypto is not the issue.

I take issue with this part of his statement:

After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

THAT is the part I disagree with and would break/change/kill Bitcoin.

[andulolika]

Why would it break btc to go to sha 512 or such? Not sure if thats possible but im pretty sure it would be necessary after a while.

Changing the cypto is not the issue.
I take issue with this part of his statement:

 After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

THAT is the part I disagree with and would break/change/kill Bitcoin.

I think its logical that sha256 will become vulnerable eventually but i also tought its logical that bitcoin should and will evolve to avoid this.

[Syke]

huge fraction of coins fall into the hands of thieves eager to dispose of them would be a neutral or transient event.

By that same logic, Satoshi's 1M coins should be destroyed right now. Don't you see how faulty your logic is? This "future situation" already exists. At any moment, his private keys could be stolen, or he could decide to dump all his coins. They are his coins. He should be the only one to decide what to do with them. That is a core principle that Bitcoin was founded upon.

[BurtW]

Why would it break btc to go to sha 512 or such? Not sure if thats possible but im pretty sure it would be necessary after a while.

Changing the cypto is not the issue.
I take issue with this part of his statement:

After some point the current private keys shouldn't be honored anymore.  Anyone that misses the cutoff effectively lose their Bitcoins.

THAT is the part I disagree with and would break/change/kill Bitcoin.

I think its logical that sha256 will become vulnerable eventually but i also tought its logical that bitcoin should and will evolve to avoid this.

Point of information:  it is not the hashing algorithms that are QC vulnerable it is the ECCDSA that is vulnerable.  If/when QC becomes a reality we will have no trouble convincing a majority to move to a new DSA.  Deciding exactly which new DSA to move to may be an issue but after a lot of the standard drama that accompanies all decisions in Bitcoin, I believe a new DSA will be picked and we will move to it.  The hashing algorithms used can and will also be replaced/upgraded as needed (just not due to QC).

[andulolika]

huge fraction of coins fall into the hands of thieves eager to dispose of them would be a neutral or transient event.

By that same logic, Satoshi's 1M coins should be destroyed right now. Don't you see how faulty your logic is? This "future situation" already exists. At any moment, his private keys could be stolen, or he could decide to dump all his coins. They are his coins. He should be the only one to decide what to do with them. That is a core principle that Bitcoin was founded upon.

I think those coins should stay as they are,i doubt satoshi would/could spend them all.
If bitcoin ever goes POS then they would be an insurance against governments that will try to achieve 51% of the network.

[finkelsteinMonster]

huge fraction of coins fall into the hands of thieves eager to dispose of them would be a neutral or transient event.

Why would thieves be any more eager to dispose of those coins than the rightful owners? Because storing your wealth in BTC is unreasonable? Because BTC is not fungible? Because someone might come along and decide that the coins are stolen, and should be destroyed? 
If some or all of the coins were moved, how would you even know if it's due to theft (and not the rightful owners moving them)?