I found a paper wallet on a beach ... seriously

[o_e_l_e_o]

So let's say you use certain Bitcoin mixer, and you end up with my ''stolen'' coins from that paper wallet, that also makes you a criminal and a thief, right??

Obviously not, and I never said anything even close to that.

Since you are big anti-tainting proponent for Bitcoin it's strange that you are so much forcing that FINDING something on the ground is steeling, just because government law say it's stealing.

I don't care what the law says. If I take bitcoin which belong to someone else, that is morally wrong. Finding something with no way of returning to the rightful owner (e.g. cash) is different to finding a bitcoin wallet where the rightful owner very well may still have access and by taking the coins you are depriving them of that access.

I honestly don't understand what you are arguing here. Taking bitcoin which isn't yours is morally fine?

[1714548063]

1714548063

[BlackHatCoiner]

But the fact remains that if you take bitcoin which belong to someone else, then you are stealing.

Stealing is when you take someone's coins without their consent. You can't know for sure that they aren't fine with it, so you should try to reach them out. To do this, you address to forums, social media, perhaps even with OP_RETURN messages. If you don't get a response within a normal time span, you can't know their consent. So, taking the coins is as stealing as it isn't.

So let's say you use certain Bitcoin mixer, and you end up with my ''stolen'' coins from that paper wallet, that also makes you a criminal and a thief, right??

Being caught a thief is not relevant to being the thief. (And since you used a mixer, no one should be caught as a thief)

[dkbit98]

I honestly don't understand what you are arguing here. Taking bitcoin which isn't yours is morally fine?

Can't you read what I wrote above?
I said that I don't want to continue discussing about this subject, and you clearly don't understand what I wanted to say in my previous posts.
If you consider you are not a thief if you use stolen bitcoin previously owned by someone else, but some guy who just finds a paper wallet is a thief, than we have different understanding of what is morally fine.

Do I consider member easternklaas who found this paper wallet is a thief?
- NO, I don't.

I think it's clear enough.
End of story for me.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If you don't get a response within a normal time span, you can't know their consent. So, taking the coins is as stealing as it isn't.

I don't agree with that at all. The default position is that people do not consent to you taking their possessions. If I find your car keys, but hear no response from you after a month of phoning you, then it is not 50/50 that you are consenting to me taking your car.

Do I consider member easternklaas who found this paper wallet is a thief?
- NO, I don't.

OK, end of discussion, but I also don't think OP is a thief for finding a paper wallet. The act of moving those coins in to his own wallet and depriving the true owner of those funds is what would make him a thief.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If I find your car keys, but hear no response from you after a month of phoning you, then it is not 50/50 that you are consenting to me taking your car.

Flawed analogy: Car keys don't grant you ownership rights.

But: If I found some sort of magical document which whoever found it, gained legal ownership of the car, that could have come to my hands by either mistake or deliberately, knew no owner's name, be unfortunate at succeeding to find contact with them or some family member after a year of trying and had no obligation to give it to any other person or state, I'd consider it mine.

It might sound ridiculous to happen in real life, but not in the Bitcoin network.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Flawed analogy: Car keys don't grant you ownership rights.

Neither does a private key. The same as a car key, having access to private key might let you access the underlying asset, but it does not mean that the true owner has relinquished their claim on that asset or that you are legally allowed to take that asset. Using the private key or the car key to take the asset which is not yours is theft.

But: If I found some sort of magical document which whoever found it, gained legal ownership of the car, that could have come to my hands by either mistake or deliberately, knew no owner's name, be unfortunate at succeeding to find contact with them or some family member after a year of trying and had no obligation to give it to any other person or state, I'd consider it mine.

Now that is a flawed analogy. You find this magical document, but you have absolutely no way of knowing that the true owner doesn't also have a similar document and indeed the keys to the car, and is just choosing to use public transport for a while, or is working from home, or has decided to walk/cycle everywhere to stay fit, or is keeping the car as an investment, or is waiting for their child to turn the legal driving age to use the car, or 100 other reasons that they might not be actively using the car, and then you swoop in unannounced and take it from them against their will.

Your inability to track down and contact the true owner especially when that owner may very well still have full access to that asset and simply be choosing not to use it for the time being does not make it OK to deprive the owner of that asset.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Hadn't thought of it that way. Okay, it's a theft.

or that you are legally allowed to take that asset.

Speaking of legality, since bitcoin doesn't have a legal framework in most some countries, I believe there's no lawsuit the true owner can launch against me for taking his bitcoin without his consent, right? Even if he could prove he's the true owner (with zero-knowledge proof e.g., seed phrase).

[Welsh]

I think most of us can agree that taking the Bitcoin is morally wrong. However, what I'm most interested in here is what would you guys do. Leaving it there, knowing that someone probably hasn't left it there by choice, means that leaving it there you're probably allowing someone else to pick it up, and steal it. Although, by taking it (and not redeeming it) you're basically not allowing the person that have lost it to retrieve it.

However, it's also a beach, and therefore I'm assuming that the tides would end up destroying the paper at some point. Handing it to police as some have hinted too, could be problematic too, you don't know they won't just disregard it as they aren't familiar with the way Bitcoin is backed up, but you also don't know if they're going to try to steal it themselves.

So, the moral stand point is if you know you are not going to redeem it, that's the only concrete information you have, everything else is chance. So, would taking the paper wallet, and then leaving a note of some kind for the original owner to contact you help? Then, the problem is you've now got the issue of identifying the true owner. Of course, you could be vague in the note that you leave, and that might be a way of going about it. However, what about a person that had already seen the paper wallet, not picked it up at the time, but upon research discovered its a paper wallet, and then returned for it, and could have enough information to convince you they were the original owner.

I don't know what's the answer to this, and it might be best to just leave it there. However, that proposes additional issues as well right? It's a bit like the moral dilemma of the train tracks, where doing nothing has consequences, but also doing something also has consequences.

While, the person that lost it, should probably have a backup, one has to think that you can't rely on that, especially since the owner has already lost a backup of their seed in a public place, which they probably shouldn't have been carrying.

To be clear, I'm not proposing this issue from a legal stand point, but rather a moral stand point, I think a few users might be struggling to differentiate the two. There's most certainly a difference to me. Interested, to know what people's thoughts of the moral side of things. I think o_e_l_e_o might be onto a similar trade of thought judging by their comments on specifically the moral side of things.

In Spain you should give it to the Mayor of the city where you found the paper wallet and, after two years, if nobody claims it, it would be returned to you so it would be yours. In the case you don't do it, it would suppose a crime of "misappropriation". (This figure is 133 years old )

Even though the law states that's okay, I'm not sure I'd be okay with that personally. I believe the UK has a similar way of doing things, but the police or authorities shouldn't be the ones to determine when the original owner has relinquished their ownership of an asset. It should either be returned to the original owner or kept indefinitely until it is. 

[BlackHatCoiner]

However, what I'm most interested in here is what would you guys do.

I honestly don't know now that I'm rethinking of it. It's an interesting experiment, I ought to say. One thing I'm sure I'd do is search for the owner, and not at the beach, because most (or some) would say it's theirs. If they knew it's cash, most would definitely rise their hands.

If I could somehow know that there's only one paper wallet with this private key, and the true owner has no other way of accessing these funds, I'd take them for the same reason I'd take cash found on the street. However, taking bitcoins appear to raise moral issues, because ownership can be distributed in several places.

What I yet don't understand is: What grants you ownership rights, if not the private key? Car ownership is granted by the law, and same is true for almost every asset. For that reason, I'm not convinced that taking the keys of a car is a good analogy to taking the private key of a bitcoin wallet, and no one should be. It might be a good comparison morally-wise, but not beyond that.

[cryptosize]

If the BTC address is KYC'ed, you could argue it has a legal owner.

If not, oh well... maybe someone left it there on purpose? Like a real life mega-faucet.

[Lucius]

If not, oh well... maybe someone left it there on purpose? Like a real life mega-faucet.

How did we not think of it before - Satoshi travels around the world and leaves paper wallets on every beach he visits I think he chose the right time to start his humanitarian action, considering the inflation and all the bad things that are happening.

Jokes aside, although it's off-topic, does anyone remember a forum member who traveled around the world leaving behind paper wallets, something like a hidden treasure game?

[cryptosize]

Jokes aside, although it's off-topic, does anyone remember a forum member who traveled around the world leaving behind paper wallets, something like a hidden treasure game?

So that's indeed a thing? Interesting...

Yeah, faucets can exist in the real/physical world too.

[nc50lc]

If not, oh well... maybe someone left it there on purpose? Like a real life mega-faucet. ;D

Like this guy for example: RodeoX? (probably the user mentioned by Lucius)
He'd been hiding paper wallets in protected parcels on various locations and the latest was on Africa: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2710325.0

But given the amount, I doubt that it's him  :P

[n0nce]

[...]
What I yet don't understand is: What grants you ownership rights, if not the private key? Car ownership is granted by the law, and same is true for almost every asset. For that reason, I'm not convinced that taking the keys of a car is a good analogy to taking the private key of a bitcoin wallet, and no one should be. It might be a good comparison morally-wise, but not beyond that.

Since it's a moral question, not a legal one, it doesn't matter whether there are documents (like in the car analogy) that grant ownership rights, because these documents just formally state the previous owner's intent of transferring ownership.
If I understand o_e_l_e_o correctly - and I think this is how I would see it now, too - a credible way that something's previous owner proves their intent to transfer ownership, is a moral requirement for taking something, as it morally grants you ownership right.

As I said before though, technically, you do own Bitcoin the moment you have the corresponding private keys - that's why we always say: not your keys, not your coins.

I do get where you're coming from, though. Why is it not your keys, not your coins with cars, too? Why don't I own a rental car as soon as they hand me the keys? Or if I choose someone to custody my car keys for me?

[Lucius]

If not, oh well... maybe someone left it there on purpose? Like a real life mega-faucet.

Like this guy for example: RodeoX? (probably the user mentioned by Lucius)

I was thinking about him, but I couldn't remember his name because he hasn't been on the forum for a long time. Given that he was doing such things at a time when BTC had much less value, I thought someone else might have been playing a similar hidden treasure game.

[Pmalek]

I think most of us can agree that taking the Bitcoin is morally wrong. However, what I'm most interested in here is what would you guys do. Leaving it there, knowing that someone probably hasn't left it there by choice, means that leaving it there you're probably allowing someone else to pick it up, and steal it. Although, by taking it (and not redeeming it) you're basically not allowing the person that have lost it to retrieve it.

You kind of answered your own questions there. I would take the piece of paper, but I would not take or move the coins. I know that my intentions aren't bad and I am OK taking it. I can't say the same thing about the next person that walks down the same path on the beach I did. I would then do all I can to find the wallet's owner, but even if I failed I wouldn't move the coins or consider them to be mine. I wouldn't give the paper wallet to the police. I have seen their competence when a friend of mine had his wallet stolen. Someone found it empty of all money and returned it to the nearest police station. The rest of their procedure is a joke I am not going to get into right now.

So, the moral stand point is if you know you are not going to redeem it, that's the only concrete information you have, everything else is chance. So, would taking the paper wallet, and then leaving a note of some kind for the original owner to contact you help?

On that same beach? I don't think it will help. Like you said yourself, you don't know where the wallet belongs. The tides could have brought it from kilometers away. The owner might not even know it was in the water in the first place. A robber might have broken into the real owner's house and picked it up together with everything else he found and not knowing what it was, he just tossed it into the sea.

What I yet don't understand is: What grants you ownership rights, if not the private key?

Forget about the law for a second. Someone generated that private key. That's the sole person who should have ownership. The private key allows you to move the coins but you are not the one who should have those keys. You took them/found them/stole them from someone/somewhere.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I do get where you're coming from, though. Why is it not your keys, not your coins with cars, too?

The main (and only) difference is: You don't get the ownership rights with the car keys. Just because you can drive the car, it doesn't mean it's yours. Bitcoin private keys, though, do grant you those rights. Whoever owns the keys, owns the money. It's not how I see it, it's the way the protocol sees it.

Someone generated that private key. That's the sole person who should have ownership.

Forget about ethics for a while. Who should have ownership versus who does have the ownership differs. The protocol listens to the latter. And since ownership is defined by the protocol, whoever has the keys is the owner.

[LoyceV]

Forget about ethics for a while. Who should have ownership versus who does have the ownership differs. The protocol listens to the latter. And since ownership is defined by the protocol, whoever has the keys is the owner.

It's almost as if Bitcoin is designed to be electronic cash Old fashioned paper banknotes are exactly the same: you may have found it, and you may not be the owner based on ethics, but when you spend it, none of that matters to the receiver.

[cryptosize]

That's why I don't like moral/ethics discussions: they're highly subjective, unlike math/tech/nature/biology which are objective.

If you don't like the fact Bitcoin is electronic cash, you can always KYC it and then prove legally that it's yours.

[Cricktor]

But we don't live in a Bitcoin-only universe where only math and Bitcoin protocol rule. True, if you have the private key, you can technically move the coins. Do you actually own those coins? I see, opinions differ substantially...

There is moral, ethical and legal ownership, maybe some other more, what do I know?! I don't think that it's right in whatever context to exploit the technical ability to move data around and think you could gain ownership by doing so. But, opinions differ...