Maybe if bitcoin's property essentials (including the ownership of Satoshi's coins remaining either Satoshi's or whoever can steal them) were to be interrupted, then maybe bitcoin would retain some temporary illusion of value.. but I have my doubts. If coins can just be frozen or put into tail emissions or "held until claimed," then there is absolutely no way to stop such a slippery slope.. Such dumbness cannot be limited to satoshi's coins.
This is hard to counter. It looks like QC hacking to me: once one address is done (either hacked or confiscated by consensus), many will follow - in principle, all of them. However, the matter is complex and there are sensible arguments on both sides of the dilemma.
It is like the forking of the DAO hack. Totally fucked Ethereum's claim to decentralization - and further topped by its nonsensical move from POW to POS.
... which indeed screwed Ethereum's credibility but eventually didn't undermine its price too much. It was never going to replace bitcoin in its non-shitcoin role anyway.
A lot of effort has been placed to flatten prices which makes it seem like POW sha 256 is temporary.
It might seem that way to you, but what the fuck vision do you have?
Rereading philipma1957's words, I think he means SHA256 is temporary and could (will?) be replaced by a quantum-resistant hash function. POW isn't temporary (unless we are talking shitcoins like eth).
The mere fact that a bunch of bullshit FUD is getting spread and people are proclaiming "something's gotta be done about satoshi's coin" and you and some other guys here eat it up as if it were some kind of an emergency?
It doesn't look like an emergency right now, but it could become a real thing, and if it does bitcoin needs to have taken its cautionary steps (like changing the underlying cryptography)
before it gets real, otherwise bitcoin is dead (or at least severely injured). I think this is the core of the problem and the reason why so many people are getting worked up.
The BIGGER problem is likely the paper bitcoin fucking with price suppression to the extent that the paper bitcoin pushers are not getting called out for their not having the coins they claim to have.
This is a different issue - and a very real one too. There should be rules that mandate proof of reserves for derivatives (including, but not limited to, ETFs) that claim to be backed by real bitcoin. The problem here is that there has never been an underlying asset with similar properties as bitcoin (specifically instant verifiability), so the idea won't easily pop up in the mind of a non-bitcoiner - (such as most fine gentlemen in this room). And if it eventually pops up, the mind of a TradFi shark will suppress it or reject it. Unfortunately, most lawmakers are in that camp - either sharks or their friends.
It does not need attention, and it is not urgent.
Until it does. If it does. Again, we can't possibly know can we?
So fucking what if Satoshi's coins get taken by some undeserved entity.
The undeserving entity could play with the price. They could sell 500k coins in one day. Even simply moving anything from one of those addresses would cause an earthquake, and a tsunami after the earthquake. Here's what.
To me, it seems that "consensus" would probably end up resulting in a fork split and then see who goes to which fork.. and I suppose let the chips lie where they do.. I doubt that Satoshi freezing fork would get consensus.. but never say never..
Blackrock and Saylor voting based on the coins that they hold on behalf of others.. hahahahahaha.. not your keys not your coins... Maybe there would be an incentive to buy your own bitcoin rather than holding them with third parties?
Indeed, some ETFs (notably BlackRock's if I am not mistakens) have it written out explicitly in their charter: in the case of a fork, we decide which side is legitimate and we owe nothing of the other side to anyone (
but us, I would add. I bet they'd have pocketed all the BCH etc. without letting the "unsignificant" extracted value bother their conscience or - god forbid! - enrich the ETF holders).