What would you improve about Bitcoin if you had the chance ?

[Zilon]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

[1714852050]

1714852050

[Charles-Tim]

It is like saying you want someone to help you in a way you want the person to bath for you, go to toilet for you and do everything in a way you will not have any responsibility. That is not possible. Everything about bitcoin is perfect, it remains for you to properly backup your seed phrase or private key safely.

If you are thinking you can be careless and misplace your seed phrase, it is not bad to setup a multisig wallet in which you will have N-of-N keys with you which you can backup in different locations, only M (seed phrase not up to or if you make it equals to N) out of N seed will be required to move your coins if any seed phrase is lost.

Like in 3-of-5 multisig wallet, you can backup the 5 seed phrases in different locations, but only 3 is needed to move your coins if 2 are lost, then if 1 or 2 seed phrase or keys are lost, then you still have the option to setup a new wallet and transfer you coins to the address(es) generated by the new wallet.

I just hope Electrum will soon support Taproot, so people will be able to use Electrum to set up pay-to-taproot multisig wallet and take advantage of low fee like single key transaction.

[Flexystar]

I am not much into the technical field like you guys but I would just love to see that bitcoin is getting sent and received in simplest manner. For example with QR code scanning apps or those used in Asian country like India through their Unified Payment System (Google Pay etc.)

I want that freedom from bitcoin. I would go and tell all the developers to work on that first if I had the chance to do so.

Just imagine the world after this. All the humanity would get connected with the crypto space and bring up whole new chapter for its valuation.

[franky1]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

there is no need to change or break bitcoin by making it hackable for forgetful convenience. it just requires people to have prior thought about how they in the human world backup-keep safe their keys in the first place


bitcoin already has many ways to protect a private key. and many other ways for humans to protect the keys
you can first create a key as a seed of words, easier to memorise..
which you can then personally decide a multitude of ways to preserve it, like engrave it in metal and bury it in your yard.

or turn the bytes into a cypher which you know the puzzle to uncypher and then just have a million copies around your house which are meaningless if seen, because only you know the cypher to translate it
having a system that requires PoW to recover a private key, pretty much means needing PoW to create the key in the first place.
which then becomes a wall. where it starts costing people something to make a key...

people would use bitcoin less if it started costing them something just to have an address/"account" before they are even able to receive funds in it.

after all would you use a paypal account if they asked for a $X fee just to sign up to them?.. nope. thought not.

as for the amount of work needed. well some dormant keys have 50coin+ on them per key (satoshi stash) ($2m+ each)
so if it only cost say $2(reasonable service entry fee) of PoW to recover(gain access to a key) then thats a way to cheaply hack keys that should be unhackable. so ofcourse if there was a system. the 'entry fee' to create a key/recover a key would have to be a few $m atleast

no one would pay $2m to enter a service they never used before(one end of the scale) and no one would want to risk their wealth on a key system that can be hacked for just $2(other end of the scale), so either way.. it just wont have any real utility as a feature without breaking the overall utility of bitcoin

[fullfitlarry]

I don't think there's anything to improve about Bitcoin, if you lose your private keys, then you lose your bitcoin. I'm not a very technical person, but in order to protect your private keys, I would suggest that you read about: Metal Bitcoin Seed Storage Reviews by Jameson Lopp.

[franky1]

things that can be improved.

many people think there is no fee mechanism, no fee mechanics or rules. yet there have been and are.
plus code can be enforced , because thats what code does, make rules.

so lets start with the fee's

easily enough people can have a system where by if your utxo(unspent funds) are say 100confirms(16hours old+) you can enjoy lowest fee's possible., where as if your unspent are only 1 confirm, you pay the maximum.

this way it solves these things:
1) no longer would everyone be penalised when people spam blocks (re-spending every block) causing everyones fee to rise.
2) only the spammer pays the highest if he wants to continue spamming.
3) this deters spamming, meaning more room for genuine spends to get confirmed.

im not suggesting to just make mining pools not allowed to include 1-2 confirm transactions in a block. but to instead make it a practical cost if you want to rush a transaction through and a practical cost if you want to do it repeatedly

the current mechanisms for deterring spammers do no work.
another idea is that transactions should not have the facility to be a 5th of a blocks limits.(currently they are able) meaning just 5 transactions of certain details can fill a block to not allow more transaction in them.
heck before the txsigops= /5 of max sigops limit, there was a block that just had 1(non coinbase) tx taking up the entire block
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/364422
so changing to the 5th of block sigops, did alleviate the 1 tx a block =full dilemma, but its still allows alot of abuse, and proves that a change in the rules can be done, and not many even noticed it happened

im not saying only allow 2input 2 output transactions. (2 sigops)
but im sure as hell saying that a transactor should not be allowed to have 16,000 sigop allowance per tx (16k of 80k block sigop limit)

[BIT-BENDER]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

Then it's beats the idea of Bitcoin been decentralized, from the moment you curiously want to know about Bitcoin you should be aware of its dangers, and also be ready to sharpen your awareness, it's really in your hands, I believe there are different safe measures you can take to protect your private keys and the chances of you losing them becomes very thin, my only concern is the Bitcoin can be gone in the case of the passing away of the holder.

[hatshepsut93]

This "problem" is not unique to Bitcoin, that's how cryptography works, there can't be any "remind me your key" features, because it would mean that hackers would use them to break the crypto system. If you're scared about losing your keys, put a backup in a bank deposit box, and/or give a backup to a person that you really trust. Or use a custodial wallet if the above isn't an option, even though it's against the principles of Bitcoin, but it to some extent solves your problem.

[Kakmakr]

If it was easy to "restore" or "recover" a Private key.... it would destroy the thing that secure your bitcoins. That is why it is almost impossible to hack a Private key... and that is what gives people confidence in the safety of this technology.

If I could improve Bitcoin.. I would add some "offline" way to copy&paste a Private key in an encrypted way into a wallet, so that nobody could capture it during the "Sweep" action. (Once you sweep a Private key, it is considered being compromised... so you have to sweep ALL forked coins at the same time, which should not be necessary) 

[pooya87]

What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process

That's not improving the protocol, it is weakening it. Besides if you could recover it with "some process" that means anybody else could do it also.

~for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

Private keys are not result of SHA256, they are numbers in a slightly smaller range of 1 to 2²⁵⁶.
You also don't have to memorize the alpha-numeric combination, you write it down or better yet you create a deterministic wallet that supports seed phrases and write down simple human readable words between 12 and 24.

[uchegod-21]

If I have the chance, I will make a may to recover lost private keys as you said.

I will also make people to be able to cancel a transaction if it is sent to the wrong person by proving that you are not trying to double spend.

I will make bitcoin to start using PoS protocol so that energy will be saved.

I will make bitcoin to be less volatile if I can.

[Zilon]

 if there is really no need for any improvement then whats the need for Bitcoin improvement proposal just like the bip-21 which is obviously a proposal from developers to improve bitcoin uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme which could include mobile wallets with QR-codes. This was what bathed my curiousity. can I get clearity on this concept and why it can't be applicable to private keys as well

[Odusko]

What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process

That's not improving the protocol, it is weakening it. Besides if you could recover it with "some process" that means anybody else could do it also.

~for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

Private keys are not result of SHA256, they are numbers in a slightly smaller range of 1 to 2²⁵⁶.
You also don't have to memorize the alpha-numeric combination, you write it down or better yet you create a deterministic wallet that supports seed phrases and write down simple human readable words between 12 and 24.

Some people are saying bitcoin can be improved by making it easy to retrieve private key,i don't think its a good idea to make a change concerning private key ,because it is your personal security code,if bitcoin will enable you retrieve lost key it will be easy to hack peoples accounts,the best thing is to keep your private key safe,those that made the key to be difficult to retrieve know what they are doing and I like it that way. the only thing I can improve is the price,I can make the price not to drop for a longtime.

[coolcoinz]

if there is really no need for any improvement then whats the need for Bitcoin improvement proposal just like the bip-21 which is obviously a proposal from developers to improve bitcoin uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme which could include mobile wallets with QR-codes. This was what bathed my curiousity. can I get clearity on this concept and why it can't be applicable to private keys as well

There's of course room for improvements but it's not in the original protocol. Segwit gave us an improvement, lightning was an improvement. That doesn't mean we are going to undermine the idea by adding a way to retrieve someone's private key from the blockchain or increase block sizes like BCH supporters wanted. The majority votes here and in this case the majority wants bitcoin the way it is. If you want to build on top of it you ware welcome to, but until sha-256 is enough to secure addresses we are good to go. The first improvement we'll probably see is some kind of increased security to fight supercomputers.

[Wexnident]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

But that removes the initial point of the private key concept? Where only the owner (or whoever has access to the private key) has access to the coins? If there was an alternative way, one that is similar in concept on how "forget passwords" work, then it's basically saying you're agreeing on letting someone hold your keys so that in case you forget about it, or lose it, you still have an alternative method of access.

if there is really no need for any improvement then whats the need for Bitcoin improvement proposal just like the bip-21 which is obviously a proposal from developers to improve bitcoin uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme which could include mobile wallets with QR-codes. This was what bathed my curiousity. can I get clearity on this concept and why it can't be applicable to private keys as well

It's not like there's no improvement possible at all. Bitcoin still has issues with transaction speeds (which is being fixed or has been, idrk, by lightning network) and fees, but fixing those doesn't really affect how the core works, but more like improving it instead. Your idea of improvement was trying to change the core of what made a private key, well, private.

[davis196]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

What you are suggesting(a system to recover private keys)would most likely open the door for multiple scam attempts.
We would have to create a centralized entity,in order to handle the process of recovering lost private keys.This would totally compromise the entire purpose of Bitcoin,which is eliminating the human factor and any control over the blockchain coming from a centralized entity.
The only thing I would change about Bitcoin(if I had the powers and knowledge) would be making BTC mining more energy efficient and reducing the amount of electricity,which is being consumed by the BTC miners.

[franky1]

The only thing I would change about Bitcoin(if I had the powers and knowledge) would be making BTC mining more energy efficient and reducing the amount of electricity,which is being consumed by the BTC miners.

bitcoin is 190,000,000thash(190,000petahash or 190exahash) secured for >47TWH/y
1,727,273 asics 110thash at 3250watt power

if we were still CPU mining
and say there were 190million people CPU mining
the hashrate would be 1900terrahash(1.9 petahash or 0.0019 exahash)
10mhash x 190m cpu =1,900,000,000mhash =1,900,000ghash = 1,900thash
a pc electric draw for cpu mining 10mhash each is 100w
the electric consumption would be 166.4THW/y
100w x 190m = 19,000,000,000watts =19,000,000kwh =19,000mwh =19gw/h =456gw/d =166,440gw/y  =166.4twh/y

to even just match the electric consumption if CPU mining, only ~54m cpu's would mine and the hashrate would be just 537thash

yep bitcoin has already become more efficient.
its 353817.5x more efficient hash/watt (35,381,750%)  without losing any security

if we assume only say 1,727,273 CPU as a fair 'asic' vs 'cpu' device count
the hashrate would be 17,272,730mhash= 17.2thash
electric consumption would be 172,727,273watts/h = 1.51TWH/y

yea you can claim that its ~32x less power, device for device count. but the hashrate is 11,046,512x less secure

oh i must also add..
to cpu mine btc on just electric cost would be $552.72 per btc +1cent (average breakdown of hardware over a few years) (US electric rate)
but asic mining on just the electric cost is ~$17964.66 per btc + $31.6k(average breakdown of hardware over a few years) (US elec rate)

now how would this affect the market price.
..well why would someone pay over $40k for bitcoin if they could mine it in america for $552.72(cpu mining)
the answer is no one would buy it for over $40k if it cost only $552.
instead those mining it for $552, would happily sell for $770 and make 40% profit

thus the market would be volatile between $550>$1.6k and the price would be somewhere within that, depending on speculation

[witcher_sense]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

The whole point of cryptography in general and of Bitcoin in particular is that you discover some random big number which previously no one has heard of and that no one has seen, and with this discovery, you create unique signatures and control certain space inside the blockchain. There is no way to re-discover or restore this unique number because it would break the whole concept of cryptography and make technologies built on it insecure and therefore useless. Bitcoin is a robust system because all the underlying technologies behind bitcoin rely on randomness and mathematical problems that are practically infeasible to resolve with the computational power we have got today. Adding an additional restoring mechanism would be akin to adding hidden backdoors, vulnerabilities, and bugs which can be exploited at any time and which make bitcoin a not so robust system. Also, bitcoin is valuable because of the fact that the decisions of single individuals or groups have no effect on the system, it always remains decentralized and invulnerable to political games. If it were otherwise and everyone was capable of making changes and improvements in the protocol, bitcoin would already be dead or captured by those whose power is the highest.

[TheGreatPython]

In as much as my private key gives me full control of my funds and it grants me access to sign a transaction if it gets misplaced then I'm doom for life. What if there was an improvement on this maybe a way of recovering back ones private key if it gets misplaced even if it would take a proof of work alogrithm or even a more tudious process but having a chance to get back lost wallets in cases of carelessness or maybe hazardous damage since it's not advisable to store private keys online nor would it possible for everyone to memorize this combined alpha-numeric values of SHA256 alogrithm

Same scenario when we lost our password we can just press the forget password and the password can easily be recovered on our email. Is that what you want? But, changing the security of bitcoin will make it not different to the traditional security that we used today.

I do not want to changed it because this is the only thing that makes bitcoin unique or special. To some wallets that we used they offer different methods to access your account not only private key. They have the traditional password, pin code, json, and seed phrase and we can also have the ability to export it and save a hard copy to our selves. We can use this as a back up other than our private key.

[dbc23]

If there is a way of retrieving private keys then it will be easy for Malware attackers to easily still into wallets. The bip-39 and bip-32 mnemonic phrase wallets gives wallet owner full ownership of their coin using cryptographic hash which is used to encrypt and decrypt. Once it gets compromised by allowing a medium for retrieval after it's been misplaced then attackers will find a more easy way to break into wallets