Burn Satoshis coins to end the threat of prices crashing - Paxful Founder

[cr1776]

Paxful founder Ray Youssef has tweeted a bizzare idea in which he wants the community to burn Satoshis coins, so the threat of prices crashing due to Satoshi revealing himself and selling his coins goes away. While I understand that if Satoshi were to sell his coins crypto prices indeed will crash, but in the end it’s his creation and his coins no one should decide for him. What are your thoughts on this should the community support this bizzare idea, or voice their opinion and keep Satoshis coins safe?.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paxful-founder-makes-wild-proposal-161450915.html

An idiotic idea.  Once the principle that we can burn someone else's coins becomes enshrined in bitcoin, anyone's can be burned.

Anyway, anyone who did this would create an alt-coin and would be forked off the main chain because anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows it would destroy bitcoin.

[1714135772]

1714135772

[figmentofmyass]

Paxful founder Ray Youssef has tweeted a bizzare idea in which he wants the community to burn Satoshis coins, so the threat of prices crashing due to Satoshi revealing himself and selling his coins goes away. While I understand that if Satoshi were to sell his coins crypto prices indeed will crash, but in the end it’s his creation and his coins no one should decide for him. What are your thoughts on this should the community support this bizzare idea, or voice their opinion and keep Satoshis coins safe?.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paxful-founder-makes-wild-proposal-161450915.html

it's a controversial idea, but he's certainly not the first person to propose it. 3 years ago, theymos proposed the same thing, knowing that ECDSA will eventually be broken and the satoshi coins stolen: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4isxjr/petition_to_protect_satoshis_coins/d30we6f/

hypothetically, i have no ethical problem with the idea of activating such a fork with eg 5 years notice---that's ample time for everyone to move their coins to quantum safe addresses. the problem is, this was never part of bitcoin's original consensus. establishing a new consensus that burns these coins is therefore highly controversial.

An idiotic idea.  Once the principle that we can burn someone else's coins becomes enshrined in bitcoin, anyone's can be burned.

i don't think we should be talking about burning someone's coins. this is about burning lost coins (whoever they belonged to) before ECDSA is broken and those coins start being stolen. this is what theymos said back then:

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.

[audaciousbeing]

Paxful founder Ray Youssef has tweeted a bizzare idea in which he wants the community to burn Satoshis coins, so the threat of prices crashing due to Satoshi revealing himself and selling his coins goes away. While I understand that if Satoshi were to sell his coins crypto prices indeed will crash, but in the end it’s his creation and his coins no one should decide for him. What are your thoughts on this should the community support this bizzare idea, or voice their opinion and keep Satoshis coins safe?.

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paxful-founder-makes-wild-proposal-161450915.html

I don't understand the reason for even making the outburst in the first place because what he has done now is to successfully create additional publicity for the same coin that he does not want. He should have know long enough that in the crypto space, the opposite is like the reaction after an outburst like this and for someone who is hearing this kind of coin for the first time, he is pushed to research more about it. The crypto space does not have a central mouthpiece neither do we have a director appointed to speak on our behalf. What I would have expected him to do is to continually pursue his business by doing more publicity of bitcoin and let the market decides which route to take.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Ray Youssef don't have the authority to make that decision and he should STFU. Even Satoshi can't make that decision, since Bitcoin is a decentralized currency. At the most, he can appeal to the mining pools, to reverse the transactions through a 51% attack. But I don't think that the mining pools will approve such a request. Even if they approve it, I don't think that it can be implemented.

[Ucy]

It's probably better to freeze the coins until there is assurance nothing will be crashed deliberately . The threat to crash the price is a threat to thousands of people/investors.
It should be a community decision anyway. We can't do much if a big majority prefers the coins not to be frozen temporarily

[gentlemand]

It's probably better to freeze the coins until there is assurance nothing will be crashed deliberately . The threat to crash the price is a threat to thousands of people/investors.
It should be a community decision anyway. We can't do much if a big majority prefers the coins not to be frozen temporarily

Who is anyone to tell anyone whether they can or can't sell or move their coins? The idea sets a toxic and fatal precedent.

Someone with a market moving amount of coins either bought them or put the work in to mine them. Just because they have more of them does not mean anyone else should have control over their intentions. The thought of that is plain bizarre.

Would there be an invisible threshold where you wake up to an empty wallet and an apologetic tweet? 'Sorry, dude. You have too much. Try not to try too hard next time.'

[squatter]

Hard forking or whatever to achieve this aside, the idea of Satoshi dutifully sending in a selfie with a hopeful smile holding up his driving licence to dump on Yobit is a fucking joke.

Youssef is an idiot, especially since he thinks we can conclusively identify Satoshi's coins to begin with. He's proposing this for the wrong reasons.

There are, however, good reasons to have a related discussion about this. In a post-quantum world, the "Satoshi coins" are probably the biggest lot of vulnerable (public key exposed) bitcoins we know about. But there could be several million lost bitcoins out there in addition to these early mined P2PK outputs, a sizeable subset of which are P2PK or in reused addresses.

These will all eventually be stolen and recirculated into the supply, possibly causing a huge divergence from users' perceptions about Bitcoin's "deflationary" monetary supply. There goes that whole idea about lost coins being a donation to other bitcoin holders! More like a donation to bitcoin shorters.

[d5000]

Nobody can burn Bitcoins on the original blockchain. You can create a fork without the coins you don't want. But the original chain with all coins will remain the strongest chain.

Even a "hard fork" cannot enforce that reliably.

You can deploy a modified client with a rule that declares some coins invalid, as a part of a new protocol, which would result in a hard fork, correct. But the coins would stay at the addresses. That means that it is always possible to "hard-fork" them back if there is consensus to change the protocol again, because the transactions with the mined coins by Satoshi will stay in the block chain. You would have to "re-create" the whole chain if you wanted to delete these coins, and then all block hashes etc. would change.

So the only way to really "reliably" burn Satoshi's coins would be to create a new genesis block, as a "snapshot coin" like some small altcoins (I remember Bitcore) have done it. The snapshot would include all currently valid UTXOs minus the ones that were mined by Satoshi.

This would certainly not be Bitcoin anymore.

"Moving" the coins is completely impossible if not by "hacking" his addresses as others already wrote.

[o_e_l_e_o]

These will all eventually be stolen and recirculated into the supply, possibly causing a huge divergence from users' perceptions about Bitcoin's "deflationary" monetary supply.

At any point, Satoshi's coins could move without warning and be recirculated in to the supply. As could any coin which is considered "lost". We have no way of knowing how many coins are truly "lost", and everyone (at least everyone who understands bitcoin even a little) should know and appreciate this. Having a sudden influx of a million coins, and therefore a ~5% inflation, would be less damaging to bitcoin than removing one of its core principles by allowing a small group of people to decide which coins are and are not allowed to be used in the future.

Still, if suddenly a million coins moved from early addresses, I suspect the price would dip more from weak hands panic selling than from these "lost" coins entering the market. An attacker with the knowledge and technology to break ECDSA isn't going to be stupid enough to dump a million coins on the market at once. If these coins do move, I'll be waiting to buy the dip.

[squatter]

These will all eventually be stolen and recirculated into the supply, possibly causing a huge divergence from users' perceptions about Bitcoin's "deflationary" monetary supply.

At any point, Satoshi's coins could move without warning and be recirculated in to the supply. As could any coin which is considered "lost". We have no way of knowing how many coins are truly "lost", and everyone (at least everyone who understands bitcoin even a little) should know and appreciate this.

We don't. We won't know until after the fact, once ECDSA is broken and nothing is done. It'll be a roller coaster, that's all I know.

Having a sudden influx of a million coins, and therefore a ~5% inflation, would be less damaging to bitcoin than removing one of its core principles by allowing a small group of people to decide which coins are and are not allowed to be used in the future.

The amount of vulnerable bitcoins probably goes far beyond the "Satoshi coins" -- that's just the lowest base line to start our assumptions from.

You can deploy a modified client with a rule that declares some coins invalid, as a part of a new protocol, which would result in a hard fork, correct.

That could be done with a soft fork. Miners have incentive to enforce it since it would prevent unpredictable inflation.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The amount of vulnerable bitcoins probably goes far beyond the "Satoshi coins" -- that's just the lowest base line to start our assumptions from.

Agreed, but since no one knows how many coins are "lost", how can the market be functioning on the premise that x amount are gone? If 100,000 bitcoins get moved for the first time in 5 years, were they just being held long term, or were they "lost" coins which have suddenly been rediscovered? Did the market already price those in? We don't even know that Satoshi's coins are truly "lost". And if we know that someone is going to break ECDSA in the future, can't the market price that in in advance as well?

There are too many unknowns, but everyone should be operating on the premise that the current circulating supply of bitcoin is 17.9 million.

[figmentofmyass]

Who is anyone to tell anyone whether they can or can't sell or move their coins? The idea sets a toxic and fatal precedent.

the optimal way to approach the issue is not to stop people from moving their coins, but instead, to make sure they move them---to quantum safe/one-time use addresses. move them or lose them is the idea.

for example, if we believe ECDSA will be broken in 10 years, the parameters for a fork could be that if coins haven't been moved to quantum safe addresses within 10 years, they be destroyed. in virtually any altcoin, this would be an acceptable parameter. but this approach doesn't work in bitcoin because bitcoin has a culture that is incredibly hostile to consensus change.

i'm amazed that people still believe a hard fork block size increase will ever happen in bitcoin. no way! every passing day that goes by, the consensus becomes more and more hardened and unchangeable. it's clear as day.

[gentlemand]

the optimal way to approach the issue is not to stop people from moving their coins, but instead, to make sure they move them---to quantum safe/one-time use addresses. move them or lose them is the idea.

for example, if we believe ECDSA will be broken in 10 years, the parameters for a fork could be that if coins haven't been moved to quantum safe addresses within 10 years, they be destroyed. in virtually any altcoin, this would be an acceptable parameter. but this approach doesn't work in bitcoin because bitcoin has a culture that is incredibly hostile to consensus change.

Aye, this scenario would be a proper tricky one. That would add up to several million coins no matter what.

I really can't see there being any agreement regarding anything so the only hope would be white hats having those coins away before the darker ones because no matter what, someone's going to take them. It's not as if anyone is going to announce that they've broken it either. We'll know it when it starts to happen.

Millions of coins in new hands might be the least of BTC's problems at that point.

[Harlot]

Lol, I think it would still have the same effect as if we are on a volatile market. Satoshi's supply burned to the ground will just only be viewed negatively by the general public and it will trigger FUD immediately even the whales will be on board on offloading their position if this happened. I don't think the volatility or the market scare we are having now is that considerable because of the thought of Satoshi revealing himself in the world. I would rather stay in the current situation now than see Satoshi's own supply will go away.

[qubitasic]

Post quantum we will have lots of forks. But the quantum upgraded original chain with all the mined coins will be the strongest. Anyone who has the privatekey of an old address can now move their coins and they will be quantum secure. Otherwise they are 'shalecoins' and have no owner and will be 'fracked'. These coins are the reward of their 'frackers'. If some think that the 'shalecoins' should be locked/destroyed, they can use the fork with excluded 'shalecoins'. They are already discussing such things: Fork and Destroy Satoshi's 1 million Bitcoin? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5131393.0

No matter what, a decade is not such a long time. We should be discussing this stuff today.

Yes, squatter.
Quantum computers will surprise the Bitcoin community. The 'shalecoins' will be moved and will become active. Thereafter BTC owners will decide, which fork they want to use.

The original chain will remain the strongest chain. If some groups can reproduce the privatekeys of 'shalecoins', coins with no owner https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5134441.0, it's their reward. They are trying to build a computer in the near future, that wouldn't be built so fast without that incentive. That opportunity accelerates the technology. If there are still some BTC owners -incl. Satoshi- with old addresses and remove their coins now, they will be secure. So it's a fair game. And nobody can change that game: Bitcoin rewards the best technology.

The Bitcoin network is a pure competition network. Only the best technology will be successful here and make it secure. A Bitcoin fork without the old coins would be like another s**tcoin, because it would avoid real competition.

edited

[eternalgloom]

Still, if suddenly a million coins moved from early addresses, I suspect the price would dip more from weak hands panic selling than from these "lost" coins entering the market. An attacker with the knowledge and technology to break ECDSA isn't going to be stupid enough to dump a million coins on the market at once. If these coins do move, I'll be waiting to buy the dip.

I'd actually quite like that idea, it would mean that we'd get closer to the prospect of seeing those lost coins back into circulation again.
There can never be more than 21 million anyway, so even if Satoshi's original coins trickle onto the market, it wouldn't have that big of an effect long-term I reckon.

Rest assured that there will be enough people buying up those coins.

[d5000]

You can deploy a modified client with a rule that declares some coins invalid, as a part of a new protocol, which would result in a hard fork, correct.

That could be done with a soft fork. Miners have incentive to enforce it since it would prevent unpredictable inflation.

You're right, that would make it easier - and more difficult to change back to the old protocol (because restoring the validity of Satoshi's coins then would need a hard fork as new blocks without the invalidation would be incompatible with clients enforcing it).  It would basically be the ETH/ETC scenario.

However, with enough consensus the change can always be reverted. There could even be a hybrid client solution, where users who disagree with the new restriction could simply not enforce the rule unless they're mining. That would make a change back to the old protocol easier: They could include a mechanism similar to a soft fork, but which simply creates a hard fork back to the old protocol if enough of the previous blocks (e.g. 90%) support a change back.

The protocol without Satoshi's coins could obviously continue to exist, resulting in two different chains, and the question then would be if "protocol purity" or "lower coins supply" would be more attractive.

(Edit:) A plausible scenario would be the following, in the case there's a soft fork invalidating Satoshi's coins:
- Satoshi announces that he will donate most of the coins to charities.
- He creates and broadcasts transactions to known addresses to the charities, with a large part of the outputs blocked by long timelocks, so the charities can't dump the coins at once.
- In parallel, he distributes the alternative client which would fork back to the old protocol and removes the "invalidation", like I wrote above.
- Users wouldn't have to fear a large dump anymore, so the main reason for the invalidation would not be true anymore. That would make it attractive to use the client with the restored protocol. Satoshi would not have even to come out of his anonymity, because the signed and broadcasted transactions from his accounts are enough for the users to believe him.
- This would result obviously in a communication war, but if Satoshi isn't too greedy I think he would have a big chance to succeed and that in the end the chain with the "backfork" to the old protocol would be the stronger one. If user support is strong enough, miners will also find it more attractive to support the "new old" chain.

(Another Edit:) Satoshi could obviosly also simply bribe miners with his coins, and/or combine both methods.

[luca1073]

Burning coins to try to stop the price crashing is a complete non sequitur.

One of the core principle of bitcoin is it is decentralized and censorship resistance. There is no central authority which can exercise control over other people's money, burn coins, freeze address, reverse transactions, and so forth. There is no majority rule which can prevent someone else from doing anything they like with their coins, including dumping them on the market if they so choose.

If you burn Satoshi's coins, you have effectively destroyed a core principle of bitcoin. The number of people who would sell up and move their money elsewhere would crash the market harder than Satoshi's coins would.

There are plenty of centralized scam coins out there you can put your money in instead if you desire.

I agree, that would be 100 % damaging to bitcoin. i didn't even know that was actually possible. these people saying these things are the worst and possibly have an IQ close to zero

[Kakmakr]

So, what happens after we destroy Satoshi Nakamoto's coins, do we burn all Roger Ver's coins next and then Mike Hearn's coins ..... Nope, the fact that you own coins and nobody can take it away from you are one of the fundamental building blocks of this technology.

Bitcoin is not a centralized technology where you can block people's access to their own tokens or their wealth for whatever reason. A lot of people will sell their coins, when that security feature is taken away.   

                                                                --<< Bitcoin is not a Bank >>--

[larouda]

Given how smart satoshi is why would he dump the coins on the market all at once? I think he should know better than that so. why is everybody assuming he would act like an idiot? What I mean is that even if he finally showed up I see no reason why he should do that considering that he doesn't seem to be in a hurry of moving those coins..