Satoshi's coins rights

[TheWallStreetCrew]

what about decentralization?

[Holliday]

/sigh... Most people are missing the point entirely.

If the cryptography protecting Bitcoin becomes vulnerable, every coin on the block chain will be vulnerable until it's moved to a new non-vulnerable address.

Assuming that this happens well into the future, suddenly a bunch of coins which were basically lost forever (and no longer part of the market) would once again be available on the market. This would shock the market in a major way (a lot of coins are considered lost). It would be like there was a once-off block reward of 1 million+ coins.

If nothing is done, people with fast computers would gain access to everyone's coins.

So... the fix would be to set a date (probably by block height) that everyone would need to transfer their coins to a new non-vulnerable address. If you don't transfer your coins by that date, they are considered lost forever, and would be locked (not transferred) by the protocol.

Bitcoin is a new form of money that comes with new challenges. One of those challenges might end up to be that you need to "update" your money to protect it. Expecting users to upgrade to prevent unauthorized access to private keys is not theft.

The economic majority decides which changes will be made to the protocol through it's ability to render the coins valueless. The economic majority will choose it's own self-interest.

...

If the launch codes for the world's nukes were vulnerable to unauthorized access due to broken cryptography, would the world say, "Oh, we can't force an upgrade because that is theft from the original nuke owners! We must let the chips fall where they may and let those codes end up in the hands of whoever can crack them first!"

No... that would be ridiculous.

[ArcCsch]

/sigh... Most people are missing the point entirely.

If the cryptography protecting Bitcoin becomes vulnerable, every coin on the block chain will be vulnerable until it's moved to a new non-vulnerable address.

Yes, that is true, but Satoshi's coins would be specially vulnerable because most coins are on pay-to-pk-hash addresses, and can only be cracked in the brief time between broadcast and confirmation (hash reversal is much more quantum hard than elliptic curve reversal), while Satoshi's coins are on pay-to-pk addresses, and hackers don't have to hurry to hack them.

[calkob]

In my opinion it would be completely wrong to remove coins from any address without having the keys to that address.  so only the owner can move them.  if bitcoin ever went down the road of even suggesting such a thing i would sell everything i have and move on..... i i bet there would be alot of people doing the same.

[Carlton Banks]

In my opinion it would be completely wrong to remove coins from any address without having the keys to that address.  so only the owner can move them.  if bitcoin ever went down the road of even suggesting such a thing i would sell everything i have and move on..... i i bet there would be alot of people doing the same.

Please don't wait, sell your BTC to someone who is willing to even attempt to understand the issue (which you have demonstrated you are unwilling to do).


Sell, preferably quickly. I and others want more BTC, and we will be wanting them to be resistant to QC bruteforcing, whether Satoshi decides to protect his/their stash or not.

[pawel7777]

Assuming that this happens well into the future, suddenly a bunch of coins which were basically lost forever (and no longer part of the market) would once again be available on the market. This would shock the market in a major way (a lot of coins are considered lost). It would be like there was a once-off block reward of 1 million+ coins.

If there was a general agreement that those 1 mil coins are "lost" there would be no controversy. There's still uncertainty, which is likely factored in the price (to some degree).

...
So... the fix would be to set a date (probably by block height) that everyone would need to transfer their coins to a new non-vulnerable address. If you don't transfer your coins by that date, they are considered lost forever, and would be locked (not transferred) by the protocol.

It all boils down to whether such deadline should be set or not. The moral dilemma is to whether it's OK to cut-off anyone from their coins in order to protect the market cap. You can never be sure whether those coins will be 'hacked' or whether the 'rightful' owner will manage to transfer them in the last minute.

Bitcoin is a new form of money that comes with new challenges. One of those challenges might end up to be that you need to "update" your money to protect it. Expecting users to upgrade to prevent unauthorized access to private keys is not theft.

It's not theft, but it's ethically ambiguous. You can 'update' your own money and leave the option open to others without a deadline. If they don't transfer on time and get their funds stolen - so be it. The price would get (badly) hit, but it'd all come back to normal eventually.

The economic majority decides which changes will be made to the protocol through it's ability to render the coins valueless. The economic majority will choose it's own self-interest.

Of course. But 'disabling' the coins stolen in any of the major exchanges hacks would also be in the economic majority's best interest (hacker can't dump them on the market + your share in total supply increases), but rarely anyone was taking such idea seriously, as it wasn't in line with Bitcoin's principles.


To me, it's not all black/white and I could defend both positions here.

[DooMAD]

/sigh... Most people are missing the point entirely.

If the cryptography protecting Bitcoin becomes vulnerable, every coin on the block chain will be vulnerable until it's moved to a new non-vulnerable address.

Assuming that this happens well into the future, suddenly a bunch of coins which were basically lost forever (and no longer part of the market) would once again be available on the market. This would shock the market in a major way (a lot of coins are considered lost). It would be like there was a once-off block reward of 1 million+ coins.

If nothing is done, people with fast computers would gain access to everyone's coins.

So... the fix would be to set a date (probably by block height) that everyone would need to transfer their coins to a new non-vulnerable address. If you don't transfer your coins by that date, they are considered lost forever, and would be locked (not transferred) by the protocol.

Bitcoin is a new form of money that comes with new challenges. One of those challenges might end up to be that you need to "update" your money to protect it. Expecting users to upgrade to prevent unauthorized access to private keys is not theft.

The economic majority decides which changes will be made to the protocol through it's ability to render the coins valueless. The economic majority will choose it's own self-interest.

While I'm sure most people would hastily transfer their own coins to a non-vulnerable address, I'm still not convinced that a sufficient majority of the network would be on board with setting a cut off date or block height that would render other peoples' coins useless.  It's something that could prove equally as contentious as scaling.  Securing your own property is obvious and no one will have any objections with that part.  It stands to reason that the majority of coins will be moved to quantum resistant addresses.  But beyond that, what you're proposing in the rest of your post is making decisions on what to do with property that doesn't belong to you in an attempt to bolster the value of your own property.  I tend to believe most people wouldn't opt to run code that could lock someone's coins without their permission.  It's a hugely ethical quandary.

Also, with regard to market shocks, who's to say the market won't react badly to the news that coins might be "stolen" (even if you don't personally agree with that interpretation) via a protocol change?  We could even end up with a split like ETH/ETC if some people won't budge on their stance.  There's bound to be some instability and uncertainty either way, really.

[Carlton Banks]

I tend to believe most people wouldn't opt to run code that could lock someone's coins without their permission.  

Here's your problem: focusing on Satoshi, or any other individual.

The issue is not Satoshi's coins. It's that those coins are coincidentally all held at Pay-to-Public key addresses. It's not even certain that Satoshi definitively owns those coins, just a very informed guess.

Other people, who are not Satoshi, own or owned coins in P2PK addresses, it's got nothing to do with specific people at all,

You're throwing the gasoline of argument conflation on this proverbial fire (strange how you only ever appear in topics to perform this same act)

It's a hugely ethical quandary.

Not in the actual scenario given, but you're not really interested in that, are you?

[franky1]

come on people, wise up
some people need to think rationally, instead of thinking all of blockstreams idea's are perfect. purely because they trust blockstream. think rationally, think logically and think beyond your personal "i hope to get rich if i circlejerk blockstream"

just think about it..
obliterating coins out of fear of obliterating coins..!!!

thats like running infront of a car tomorrow, on purpose.. out of fear one day in the next few decades you might be in a car accident.
thats like smoking 200 cigarates a day to get cancer out of fear one day you might get cancer.

we should have an OPTION of a new keypair type. and let people FREELY and VOLUNTARILY move THEIR OWN funds across.. but not to forcibly obliterate any coin that doesn't personally volunteer to move their own coin. as that's foolish

instead of destroying old coins simply because they are p2pk how about leave them to stay where they are and if some hacker steals them and moves them then that would be the old coins punishment.

but intentionally obliterating the coins (remove from circulation) is not ethical and not in any way good for anyone. and affects fungibility if its made ok to destroy coins on a whim of fear. especially if the act they are performing out of fear is the same/worse act as they are fearing.

[ArcCsch]

I would quit bitcoin if a hard fork to invalidate coins ever happens.

If the coins are dumped on the market, that should, in theory, reduce the price by 5%, fluctuations of this size are quite commonplace.
However, the resulting FUD and panic would probably dump the price much more than that, I think bitcoin would still survive.
If Satoshi voluntarily burned the coins, this problem would be solved, but this seems unlikely.

[DooMAD]

I tend to believe most people wouldn't opt to run code that could lock someone's coins without their permission.  

Here's your problem: focusing on Satoshi, or any other individual.

The issue is not Satoshi's coins. It's that those coins are coincidentally all Pay-to-Public key addresses. It's not even certain that Satoshi definitively owns those coins, just a very informed guess.

Other people, who are not Satoshi, own or owned coins in P2PK addresses, it's got nothing to do with specific people at all,

Except for the part where you're clearly talking about everyone who misses the cut off date.  I absolutely agree it has nothing whatsoever to do with specific people at all.  Hence my use of the words "someone's coins" and not even mentioning Satoshi.  How am I focusing on Satoshi when you're the one arguing about them?  

Shuffle the words around any way you like, you are talking about making private keys that don't belong to you non-functional because you care rather strongly about the fiat value of your own holdings.  All I'm saying is some people are going to take issue with that.  Don't expect an easy ride on this issue.  Definitely don't expect me to be the only one questioning it.

 

You're throwing the can of gasoline of argument conflation on this proverbial fire (strange how you only ever appear in topics to perform this act)

More strange is how it's only ever pouring gasoline on the fire when someone disagrees with you.  It's never controversial if you personally think it's a good idea.  Clearly everyone else is just overreacting and it's quite trivial to potentially render millions of bitcoins worthless because you only care about your own.  

[Carlton Banks]

I tend to believe most people wouldn't opt to run code that could lock someone's coins without their permission.  

Here's your problem: focusing on Satoshi, or any other individual.

The issue is not Satoshi's coins. It's that those coins are coincidentally all Pay-to-Public key addresses. It's not even certain that Satoshi definitively owns those coins, just a very informed guess.

Other people, who are not Satoshi, own or owned coins in P2PK addresses, it's got nothing to do with specific people at all,

Except for the part where you're clearly talking about everyone who misses the cut off date.  I absolutely agree it has nothing whatsoever to do with specific people at all.  Hence my use of the words "someone's coins" and not even mentioning Satoshi.  How am I focusing on Satoshi when you're the one arguing about them?  Shuffle the words around any way you like

Uh, who's shuffling words around here, exactly?


You mentioned a "someone". Not me. It's written in your quoted text, the text you wrote. 20 minutes ago. Can you not remember what you did 20 minutes ago, even when it's written down?

you are talking about making private keys that don't belong to you non-functional because you care rather strongly about the fiat value of your own holdings.

Nope. That's not what I'm talking about.

You're deliberately trying to twist my position, and that is the entire substance of your post: twisting. Is that because you're not interested in an honest argument?

[DooMAD]

I tend to believe most people wouldn't opt to run code that could lock someone's coins without their permission.  

Here's your problem: focusing on Satoshi, or any other individual.

The issue is not Satoshi's coins. It's that those coins are coincidentally all Pay-to-Public key addresses. It's not even certain that Satoshi definitively owns those coins, just a very informed guess.

Other people, who are not Satoshi, own or owned coins in P2PK addresses, it's got nothing to do with specific people at all,

Except for the part where you're clearly talking about everyone who misses the cut off date.  I absolutely agree it has nothing whatsoever to do with specific people at all.  Hence my use of the words "someone's coins" and not even mentioning Satoshi.  How am I focusing on Satoshi when you're the one arguing about them?  Shuffle the words around any way you like

Uh, who's shuffling words around here, exactly?


You mentioned a "someone". Not me. It's written in your quoted text, the text you wrote. 20 minutes ago. Can you not remember what you did 20 minutes ago, even when it's written down?

I don't know how to phrase it any more simply.  My post was not about Satoshi and you open your reply by saying that my problem is I'm focusing on Satoshi.  Clearly there has been a misunderstanding.  What I'm saying is, this could affect any number of someones.

Maybe this will help:

someone
ˈsʌmwʌn/

    1.    an unknown or unspecified person; some person.


That's what I mean by "someone".  Any random person using Bitcoin who might not be looking too closely and miss a rather important deadline that's being proposed by some people in this thread.  Stop jumping to conclusions and assuming I'm talking about a specific individual.  If I change the word to "anyone", will that cease your mindless pedantry and get you to focus on the actual point of the post?  Which is, nullifying other peoples' property could be considered immoral.  

I'm still not convinced that a sufficient majority of the network would be on board with setting a cut off date or block height that would render other peoples' coins useless. 

That's peoples'.  i.e. more than one person and not a specific individual.  Is that clear now?

you are talking about making private keys that don't belong to you non-functional because you care rather strongly about the fiat value of your own holdings.

Nope. That's not what I'm talking about.

Okay then, what are you talking about?  It sounds like that's what Holliday was talking about and you seemed to agree with it.  If you don't, feel free to outline your stance on the matter.  Do you think there should be a cut off point where coins not moved to a quantum proof key are frozen by the network?  Personally, I don't.

[Carlton Banks]

If you really wanted to "phrase it simply" as you say, you wouldn't write multiple paragraphs replete with strange looking phonetic characters from dictionary quotes. Way to make it simple, lol


You're trying to obscure your weak strawman, aren't you?

[DooMAD]

If you really wanted to "phrase it simply" as you say, you wouldn't write multiple paragraphs replete with strange looking phonetic characters from dictionary quotes. Way to make it simple, lol


You're trying to obscure your weak strawman, aren't you?

What fucking strawman?  Talk sense you raving crackpot.  Whatever.  I'm happy to let others decide for themselves what I meant.  Are you going to answer the damn question or not?  Do you think there should be a cut off point where coins not moved to a quantum proof key are frozen by the network?

[maku]

For all we know he (SATOSHI) could be moving his coins when quantum computers become threat into a safer quantum proof address, without notifying us.

I was convinced that if quantum computing will become a real threat to existing cryptography solutions, then bitcoin protocol will be automatically updated to reflect that.
Do I really would have to move my coins to another quantum proof address in that happen as many of you suggesting? There is no feasible automatic way to prevent that?
Need of manual update (in this case moving coins by hand) seems like huge security threat for every abandoned/lost coin - many BTC users might leave because of that.

If Satoshi voluntarily burned the coins, this problem would be solved, but this seems unlikely.

Would you burn your coins to solve that 'problem'?

[franky1]

For all we know he (SATOSHI) could be moving his coins when quantum computers become threat into a safer quantum proof address, without notifying us.

I was convinced that if quantum computing will become a real threat to existing cryptography solutions, then bitcoin protocol will be automatically updated to reflect that.
Do I really would have to move my coins to another quantum proof address in that happen as many of you suggesting? There is no feasible automatic way to prevent that?
Need of manual update (in this case moving coins by hand) seems like huge security threat for every abandoned/lost coin - many BTC users might leave because of that.

If Satoshi voluntarily burned the coins, this problem would be solved, but this seems unlikely.

Would you burn your coins to solve that 'problem'?

well if you want to use segwit for instance, you will need to move over to new private/public keys. so we shall see what a realistic user adoption of new keys would occur.

if segwit activates. we can look at how much of the community move coins into segwit transaction types.

my opinion we wont ever see the full ~4500tx/block (2.1x) one time boost of segwit because that 2.1x is based on 100% of people using segwit transactions.
but atleast we can see how many people adopt the new keytype to be able to look at the possible scenarios of a QC doomsay of stealing funds. basing that far future doomsday on the stats of segwit adoption.

and no segwit is not QC resistant. im just talking about statistics of adoption rate to later have some adoption stats to let analysts look at how many possible bitcoin thefts could occur if QC was going to bruteforce and steal funds.

[Carlton Banks]

You're trying to obscure your weak strawman, aren't you?

What fucking strawman?

The one where I say "it's about the weak security of P2PK", then you say "stop trying to steal individuals coins!".


That strawman

[DooMAD]

You're trying to obscure your weak strawman, aren't you?

What fucking strawman?

The one where I say "it's about the weak security of P2PK", then you say "stop trying to steal individuals coins!".


That strawman

Yeah, see, that's not a strawman, ya fruitloop.  No wonder I'm having trouble figuring out what the hell you're talking about.  It's clearly not a strawman if your proposal to "fix" the "weak security of P2PK" is to deny access to the coins that are on those addresses.  This is throwing fungibility out the window, stating unequivocally that coins on one format of address are not equal to those on a more secure format.  Effectively blacklisting the unsecured coins to protect the value of the secured ones.  I'm just not okay with that idea.  I sincerely doubt consensus would ever enforce that.  Keep crying strawman if you think it'll help your case, but I'm not seeing much support for the notion.

If the launch codes for the world's nukes were vulnerable to unauthorized access due to broken cryptography, would the world say, "Oh, we can't force an upgrade because that is theft from the original nuke owners! We must let the chips fall where they may and let those codes end up in the hands of whoever can crack them first!"

No... that would be ridiculous.

Or another great analogy could be if you haven't seen your neighbour for a few years and thought there was a chance they might be dead and their possessions were vulnerable to unauthorized access because your home security system is newer than theirs.  So you decide the best solution would be to burn their house down so that no one can steal their stuff.  Problem solved.  

[Carlton Banks]

You're trying to obscure your weak strawman, aren't you?

What fucking strawman?

The one where I say "it's about the weak security of P2PK", then you say "stop trying to steal individuals coins!".


That strawman

Yeah, see, that's not a strawman, ya fruitloop.  No wonder I'm having trouble figuring out what the hell you're talking about.  It's clearly not a strawman if your proposal to "fix" the "weak security of P2PK" is to deny access to the coins that are on those addresses.  This is throwing fungibility out the window, stating unequivocally that coins on one format of address are not equal to those on a more secure format.  Effectively blacklisting the unsecured coins to protect the value of the secured ones.  I'm just not okay with that idea.  I sincerely doubt consensus would ever enforce that.  Keep crying strawman if you think it'll help your case, but I'm not seeing much support for the notion.

You're putting words in my mouth, and trying to pretend we're having a different discussion. That's called a "strawman argument", and people that use that tactic are trying to disrupt sensible debate, not take part in it honestly.

Try arguing about the actual issue, instead of using lame tactics