Bitcoin experts debate freezing Satoshi’s 1M...

[BlackHatCoiner]

Remember the 2017 blocksize wars? Big corporations like today's Coinbase and Binance tried to dictate network rules with SegWit2x, and the people completely rejected them. Proposing a change doesn't mean it can just "be done". Without consensus and economic majority, they just fork themselves onto a worthless altcoin.

[OgNasty]

I really can’t believe that Bitcoin has reached a point where people are talking about freezing someone else’s coins. I understand the danger to the market, but that isn’t supposed to be a concern for Bitcoin. I worry that those who are leading the way have completely gone off script.

[snowpega]

I really can’t believe that Bitcoin has reached a point where people are talking about freezing someone else’s coins. I understand the danger to the market, but that isn’t supposed to be a concern for Bitcoin. I worry that those who are leading the way have completely gone off script.

Yeah, you are right. And no doubt this can be a threat to the bitcoin market if Stoshi wallet get revive back because his wallet holds a fairly big supply. And then the question here is who is going to freeze Stoshi wallets? Obviously, authorities, and if I am correct, then the more concerning thing is who trusts these authorities? And who gives them this right of freezing someone legal assets this way? And they are freezing this at some point, then who guarantees that no one will be going to do corruption with stoshi holding after freezing. And we all know that the traditional system, authorities, and government are best at doing corruption, and are well known for their dirty hands for ages. This is my point of view. CMIIW!

[Creeper0]

In other words, those same "Bitcoin experts" (in this case, led by two major Bitcoin companies including CoinBase and Binance) can make any sort of change to the Bitcoin network, including adding government controls if they wanted to, or even changing the 21M coin limit or moving the Bitcoin codebase to a more centralized model for performance and scalability reasons (or say to comply with a US law).

From the beginning, I have known that the maximum limit of Bitcoin is 21 million and that the Bitcoin network is immutable. But recently I have heard something different, which I think has no basis. Although there are some risks of quantum computers in the future, it is not yet possible to say whether it will be possible to implement them or not. Even if there is a risk of extracting private keys and public keys if a high-performance quantum computer is created, it is still only a risk. It is expected that Bitcoin developers will definitely take necessary steps against this risk.

But the impossible task of changing the Bitcoin network, changing the Bitcoin limit to 21 million, and adding government control may never be possible. These are just propaganda to make people disinterested in Bitcoin. Therefore, we should not listen to this propaganda.

[PrivacyG]

I really can’t believe that Bitcoin has reached a point where people are talking about freezing someone else’s coins. I understand the danger to the market, but that isn’t supposed to be a concern for Bitcoin. I worry that those who are leading the way have completely gone off script.

It is ex Binance CEO talking about freezing them.  How does it surprise you in any way?  He is the same person who proposed a Bitcoin rollback in 2019,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-08/crypto-savior-spurs-outcry-by-suggesting-blockchain-rollback

[wigglypu]

If a hard fork happened between freezable/unfreezable dead wallets, I think people would rather be on the chain that cant be flooded with hacked bitcoin wallets.

[PrivacyG]

If a hard fork happened between freezable/unfreezable dead wallets, I think people would rather be on the chain that cant be flooded with hacked bitcoin wallets.

There are proposals for Quantum threat solutions that do not imply a complete freezing of dead wallets.  An interesting discussion around this subject is on this Topic,

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5580401.0

The Quantum threat fear is all pretty much based around the exposure of Public Keys.  stwenhao wrote an excellent reply that highlights the Topic in my opinion,

Does that mean those coins are sort of "burned"?

It depends, what exactly will be required, to move old coins. For example: if a BIP would say "let's freeze them, without any recovery phase C, or anything like that", then yes, they will be burned.

However, if it would be similar to the previous soft-forks, where coins were not burned, but only some new scripts were limited, then there could be a different rule. Like: "you need ECDSA, and a quantum signature to move it". And then, depending on what exactly is required in that second part, coins could be burned or not. For example, if it would be needed to provide the seed, then HD wallets may be spendable, but random keys may be burned.

Which means, that knowing what is burned, and what is not, depends heavily on the "recovery phase C". If it doesn't exist, then everything is burned. If it does, then only coins covered by that are safe, and everything else may be burned, or locked into trap-like addresses, where for example you would need to break the quantum algorithm to move it (just like you need to break RIPEMD-160, to clear 1BitcoinEaterAddressDontSendf59kuE).

[legiteum]

But the impossible task of changing the Bitcoin network, changing the Bitcoin limit to 21 million, and adding government control may never be possible. These are just propaganda to make people disinterested in Bitcoin. Therefore, we should not listen to this propaganda.

It's not "impossible". Changing the coin limit is literally one line of code.

You can argue that there's no evidence it's going to happen anytime soon, but it's incorrect to say, "impossible. Bitcoin's fate is in the hands of a vote of the mob. The mob's mood can change any time.

[PX-Z]

But the impossible task of changing the Bitcoin network, changing the Bitcoin limit to 21 million, and adding government control may never be possible. These are just propaganda to make people disinterested in Bitcoin. Therefore, we should not listen to this propaganda.

It's not "impossible". Changing the coin limit is literally one like of code.

You can argue that there's no evidence it's going to happen anytime soon, but it's incorrect to say, "impossible. Bitcoin's fate is in the hands of a vote of the mob. The mob's mood can change any time.

Well, basically, it's not really impossible, but it's near to that (impossible) since the whole codebase cant be just edited, uploaded and activated. It need voting or consensus for it to happen which will cause lots of debate and more will disagree to that.

[X-ray]

Really bad proposal. People would lose trust and here comes another fud saying bitcoin isn't actually decentralized since the miners can freeze funds.

I can't believe this kind of proposal even exist. How about finding possible solution first since we still got time before quantum computer become practical ?

They seems to be in hurry, we still have time.

[davis196]

"Bitcoin experts debate freezing Satoshi’s 1M bitcoin amid quantum threat"

https://cryptobriefing.com/bitcoin-experts-debate-freezing-satoshi-bitcoin-quantum/

This might be old news for some here, but I think the important thing to point out is not necessarily that people are thinking about doing this, but that... it can be done.

In other words, those same "Bitcoin experts" (in this case, led by two major Bitcoin companies including CoinBase and Binance) can make any sort of change to the Bitcoin network, including adding government controls if they wanted to, or even changing the 21M coin limit or moving the Bitcoin codebase to a more centralized model for performance and scalability reasons (or say to comply with a US law).

I don't think that this claim is true. Those "Bitcoin experts" cannot impose major changes to the Bitcoin blockchain, since there's no consensus around their proposals. They could hardfork the blockchain and create their own version of Bitcoin, but they cannot change the 21 million limit or "freeze" anyone's coins. I don't mind the coins in Satoshi's wallet to get burned, since he most likely would never use them, but this should be discussed among the community and a consensus must be achieved beforehand. The "quantum threat" is still a theory and I do believe that the blockchain could become quantum resistant without the developers having to "freeze" anyone's wallets and coins.

[legiteum]

I don't think that this claim is true. Those "Bitcoin experts" cannot impose major changes to the Bitcoin blockchain, since there's no consensus around their proposals.

I agree they can't do anything unless there is a consensus in the marketplace--i.e. a consensus among those who would maintain the average current price of BTC.

The point here it make is the inverse: with this consensus, they can do anything.

And keep in mind that while Bitcoin is technically a democracy (a democracy requiring a majority sentiment, not a unanimous sentiment I might add), in reality it operates more like an oligarchy: since people are motivated by their BTC price, big players and holders can force lesser holders to go along with them lest they be holding a worthless coin.

They could hardfork the blockchain and create their own version of Bitcoin, but they cannot change the 21 million limit or "freeze" anyone's coins.

Again, they make changes to the Bitcoin core codebase all of the time. With consensus (see above), you can do any of that.

I don't mind the coins in Satoshi's wallet to get burned, since he most likely would never use them, but this should be discussed among the community and a consensus must be achieved beforehand. The "quantum threat" is still a theory and I do believe that the blockchain could become quantum resistant without the developers having to "freeze" anyone's wallets and coins.

I'm sure it would be discussed among the largest holders of BTC and the largest distributors (CoinBase, Binance, Robinhood, the ETFs, etc.), but one place it would most certainly NOT be discussed is right here.  I'm pretty sure we don't matter .

[DiMarxist]

I don't agree to any plans from so called Bitcoin experts to freeze the coins that is believed to be owned by Bitcoin Creator Satoshi, for what ever reasons. Call it quantum threat or not , why am saying this is because these coins are very historic and significant to the Bitcoin ecosystem. We have been told that the Bitcoin network is safe, despite potential threats coming from quantum computing problems coming from the future. Freezing these coins is like destroying a part of the Bitcoin history which is very important to the Bitcoin network.