odolvlobo makes fairly important point. i will add more to it
bitcoin guardian concept cannot be implemented with just one code change. this undermines the fundamental nature of bitcoin itself. whenever we attach our master key to court authorized seizure or any trusted recovery authority information system, we are replacing cryptographic ownership with political ownership. at this point we will no longer be the true owner of our coin. we can only hold them until some influential legal or political figure decide otherwise.
I get that, but this would only be for UTXOs that people specifically wanted to be fixed. By default, the system would just operate the way it always has.
I get that lots of people don't want to use Bitcoin this way, but why not give people a choice?
They need to take care of their Bitcoin wallets, private keys, mnemonic seeds. If they want to give bitcoins to the others such as their children, they must prepare necessary inheritance steps including teaching their children about that.
That's another very good application for this proposal: what happens when a holder dies and only they had the key? This would give heirs a mechanism to recover their rightful inheritance. (And what if their children were very young? Or what if the parent didn't fully trust them in life? Of what if they died unexpectedly and didn't prepare [which is very, very common]).
They also have to maintain their privacy, and that will minimize risk of Bitcoin physical attacks.
I get that, but based on the very tiny adoption of true self-custody of Bitcoin vs. how most people use it, I think it's pretty clear that 99% of Bitcoin users don't really care about that sort of "privacy" versus the peace of mind knowing they are safe.
I disagree with any "defined legal process", as with private keys, it's enough. Other processes only result in possible technical and security issues which can be exloited while with Bitcoin private keys, it's impossible to brute force it and steal bitcoin.
Um, the Five Dollar Wrench Attack? It happens all of the time. Most people don't like the idea of physically guarding their own life savings with a gun, or against others with guns.
Lol,, these stories are really emotional. but it is not possible to make the right policy based on emotion. today they may be working for a genuine victim but tomorrow you may see a government demanding satoshi's coin. issues such as sanction, tax enforcement or confiscation of property may follow. what will count as abandoned coin, who will actually own them? which country's court decision will be final? i don't trust any govt with that kind of power and i certainly don't want bitcoin to depend on them.
Most older adults (in the US at least) already trust their government with the ownership of their house, their car, and most of their other assets. The only reason you "own" your house is that there's a document filed with the government that says you do. I get that this scares some people, but 99% of people are perfectly fine with this.
I genuinely agree with the problem you’re trying to solve, for key management is one of bitcoins usability problem but your proposal has many risks and trade off.
Introducing an entity like a “Bitcoin Guardian” is more like introducing an administrator to bitcoin, nobody is meant to have such control over bitcoin it’s undermines one of bitcoins core principles. In bitcoin whoever possesses the private key controls it so essentially we are trusting the Guardian with a special authority over Bitcoin that no single entity should have, that’s more like relinquishing control and even if the guardian is trustworthy what do we do about potential attack to the guardian? He holds so much sensitive information if peradventure he were ever attacked, I can’t begin to think of the consequences.
Now the issue of requiring court order to enable guardians recover the wallet also brings back a problem which bitcoin has been trying to solve. Government could eventually argue to freeze a wallet, transfer coins and others, and we may have jurisdiction issue in cases where the us issues a court order and another country issues another court order, which one should the guardian follow?
finally bitcoin can’t distinguish between a long term holder or a lost key. I think The problem is valid but this solution just invites so much potential problems.
Yes, I agree, the proposal has a lot of tradeoffs, and you correctly point some of them out.
Ah yes, a centralized skeleton key backdoor so the government can seize coins.
We should definitely do this. We can call this trusted Guardian "a Bank", and to save on network fees we'll just run it on a private SQL database.
Inadvertently, you probably pointed out one of the most significant criticisms of this proposal: most people who use Bitcoin already use it this way. If you use CoinBase, for instance, a court order could seize that account (or your heirs can get at it after you die, or it could be frozen if there was a security issue with your account, etc.). So maybe this proposal isn't necessary for current, active Bitcoin holders (the Landfill Guy and older wallets / dead wallets might still have a point though).
So, you view the sole right to own and manage your financial assets as a problem? It's not a security risk or loss, but an ownership right that implies personal responsibility for ensuring their safety. The main feature of bitcoin can't diminish the attractiveness of this asset.
No, the OP said nothing about rights that I can see.
You have the right to hold a bar of gold on your own person or near you. You have a right to give it to your trusted neighbor because they own a gun and you don't. You have a right to give your bar of gold to a business who charges you for its safe keeping. And so on. I don't see what Rights have to do with this conversation.
So, you want to destroy the decentralization of bitcoin (and pseudo-anonymity) by creating a centralized organization (and also involve the courts as regulators) that will be able to influence the recovery of private keys? You're also adding KYCs to all this, since filing a lawsuit can't be anonymous.
Not for every UTXO, only for a specifically-identified subset. In the proposal here, most of Bitcoin would work just like it always did.
2. Take Satoshi's wallet, for instance. A government order could use this mechanism to recover that Bitcoin and distribute it in some way (or even dispose of it).
Let them first get access to this wallet, and then distribute it.
Sure, but with a change in core, they wouldn't need to original wallet, of course....
