A piece of advice from Satoshi that you shouldn’t ignore

[Cricktor]

There is always a reason behind those instructions, you may not know but you just have to do it because the instructions came from the owner. And the owner understands the system better.

Owner of what? What are you talking about? I don't believe Satoshi has seen himself ever as "owner" of Bitcoin. I can't speak with using "we", but I don't see him as an owner. He created Bitcoin with own bits and pieces and with prior work of others, he put things into a remarkably well working assembly. But I would deny to call him an "owner".

In general, my "intervention" in this thread was a bit a "don't see everything black and white, there are grey areas" case. If everybody just repeats an advice "because Satoshi said it", then I think it's legit to throw in some reasons why in some cases, even good advices do not apply. Most rules have exceptions, and it's good to know them

Very much agree with this.

1) If you accidentally open it , it doesn't do a thing (nope, it doesn't), you need to accidentally create a tx, if you can do that by accident, you have way bigger problems, check-up needed

To my knowledge, you're wrong, depending about which wallet we're talking about. E.g. if you open an Electrum protocol SPV wallet and the wallet can successfully connect to foreign Electrum servers, the wallet will subscribe to transactions and inquire balances of all known addresses of the wallet to connected Electrum server, therefore leaking all currently known addresses of the wallet (used and unused addresses within bounds of gap limit). This is what d5000 meant, at least how I understood it. A SPV wallet can operate more privatly by not using Electrum protocol but rather more privacy preserving compact block filters (to my knowledge very few SPV wallets use this feature, Wassabi is one of them, maybe the only one?).

If you only open an old Bitcoin Core wallet, of course this doesn't leak addresses of your wallet. Maybe you meant this case with what you said?

[stompix]

~

If you only open an old Bitcoin Core wallet, of course this doesn't leak addresses of your wallet. Maybe you meant this case with what you said?

So again, for this vulnerability you need to
- load a wallet from an archive by accident
- have the same special wallet you use
- run into malicious nodes that harvest that data
- use an IP that allows them to identify you...

And now the malicious person knows that individual A, living in south-east Paris, has had Bitcoins in his wallet a decade ago...
Now, what kind of thief watches day and night for people who might have had a few coins when they can simply watch for people who have coins!!!!!!
Never heard of a guy who was robbed because his family owned a Ferrari a decade ago, but plenty got robbed cause they were driving one!

[Cricktor]

I don't see this as an issue with the risk of potentially being robbed. It's more a wallet addresses privacy issue in my opinion.

Blockchain analysis companies have an incentive to operate (performant) Electrum servers. Performant, because peer wallets may recognise good performance and users will likely remember or bookmark good performing Electrum servers. Peer Electrum protocol wallets always leak their whole current set of addresses they use which makes attribution of addresses to a single wallet pretty easy for those analysis companies. And peer users who come back likely reveal also new addresses of their wallets, too. Bonus for those analysis data suckers.

I would always recommend to use a Tor proxy when you connect to foreign nodes and/or Electrum servers.

[drangos]

I agree that having the old wallet info may be important but I believe the main thing to keep is an appropriate backup of the private keys or seed and not the wallet software. Years later, by error, donation or some unforeseen circumstance. An old address might be the recipient of funds. And if you don't have the keys. The funds may be permanently inaccessible. In other instances. Old addresses have come into use due to forks or other changes. On the other hand. If a wallet has been hacked. You should make an exception for it. As having or accidentally reusing a hacked wallet can pose another risk. So I really don't think it says much about never deleting anything under any circumstances. But rather never losing the keys to an address you need to control again down the road. A no brainer that will save you a lot of money and trouble.

[stompix]

I don't see this as an issue with the risk of potentially being robbed. It's more a wallet addresses privacy issue in my opinion.

That's how d5000 wrote it:

then your IP address tells the chain analysis guys that you owned Bitcoins in 2012/13, making you a possible target.

At this point, I think we are crossing the border into paranoia land!
Also, let's not even go into analytics companies selling IP data to thieves or them organizing raiding parties or so; let's put a stop to the tinfoil hat before it gets even completed, and I hope I don't have to bring the dynamic IP thing up before we settle it down for absurd.

There are one thousand ways to track down someone better than through the IP leaked to a node; nobody will do this kind of fishing for targets.
I'm all for privacy, but I'm more on the side of things that can actually happen and keeping your privacy without ending up in an institution.

[Nanga Parbat]

This is one of the reasons I consider wallets shouldn't be deleted, especially the ones that have been given out to some people. It might be business associates or even people very close, because the same experience has happened to many others.

Like here in the forum, if one's account is hacked or no longer has access to their forum account, it is by signing a message with an old wallet address that one can recover their account. Just imagine if one has already deleted their wallet. Satoshi understands the advantages of keeping wallets; that is why he prefers to keep them.

Keeping odl things is Never been easy because these usually needs some extra protection of always have sensitive issue because sometime without checking peoples sold their old things which also give them headache but as mentioned if someone is having time and space then surely he needs to keep his things secure without having any trouble. Sometime back one of mine fiend lost password of his blockchain wallet he is now trying to recover but its not working even he is having phrase but its not working its almost six years but he is taking care because he feels still he can recover his coins which are now almost many time above his original investment but good thing about him he is still hopeful and have all things ready but bad thing is he is not able to have acces his wallet even doing many tricks hopes are alive and now with this advice surely its going to be have positive.

[Smartprofit]

Satoshi once advised against deleting a wallet for any reason. And he also suggested keeping or even copying the keys just in case. I personally think that Satoshi believed that a wallet you no longer use might be needed at some point in the future. Perhaps Satoshi was very serious in making that suggestion. And I’m sure he didn’t want anything bad to happen to someone who had deleted their wallet, where it could lead to disappointment. Satoshi’s message shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone because you never know what the future holds so you need to follow his advice. I found myself pondering for a moment when I read Satoshi’s message. And I think Satoshi’s words carry a lot of meaning if you think about them further. But he made his words so simple by just a few words. I’m sure Satoshi is someone with cognitive efficiency which is why he’s able to make complex things seem simple. And that’s just like the idea or even the vision behind Bitcoin which he created with the goal of making things easier for everyone even though there are complex technical aspects behind it.

(Source)

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

I believe that Satoshi Nakamoto planned to donate his bitcoins (or some of them) to active users of the network at some point. 🙋

That's why he advised never to delete Bitcoin wallets.

Satoshi Nakamoto held over 1,000,000 coins, and he didn't seem to be a self-serving person. I'm sure he planned to donate his bitcoins to the community. Such a donation is entirely consistent with the idea of ​​decentralized coin storage (and Satoshi Nakamoto certainly valued decentralization). Decentralization is a fundamental principle of Bitcoin. If Satoshi Nakamoto hadn't disappeared and continued developing Bitcoin, some people might have criticized him for owning so many bitcoins. After all, mining difficulty was low in the early days. Therefore, I'm inclined to believe that Satoshi Nakamoto planned to donate his bitcoins to others.

This, incidentally, supports the theory that Satoshi Nakamoto, unfortunately, died. Had he lived, such a donation would certainly have taken place.  We would never have reached a situation where the majority of Bitcoin is in the hands of institutional players. But now that's a very real scenario. 🤷

[Hazink]

There's soooo much info from him with deeper meaning than simply "never delete a wallet" (though if u look through his messages they sound pretty straightforward, idk if he meant any of them to have a deeper meaning)

Just don't delete anything that have to do with the wallet so long as it has been funded before, even if it's just a few cents of dollars worth of coins that's left inside tomorrow, there could be a need for it. That's how I have viewed his message and those early bitcoin holders will understand it better base on their experience with bitcoin, and it's value over the years.

[WhatIf2]

Just don't delete anything that have to do with the wallet so long as it has been funded before, even if it's just a few cents of dollars worth of coins that's left inside tomorrow, there could be a need for it. That's how I have viewed his message and those early bitcoin holders will understand it better base on their experience with bitcoin, and it's value over the years.

OP just made a random post; he was curious, or maybe he is really obsessed with someone's words, but yup, if there is no cost for keeping it. Yeah, it's good to have hope in decisions, but don't get fooled by my observation; keeping stones in your pocket for years will not make you rich.

[tread93]

Satoshi once advised against deleting a wallet for any reason. And he also suggested keeping or even copying the keys just in case. I personally think that Satoshi believed that a wallet you no longer use might be needed at some point in the future. Perhaps Satoshi was very serious in making that suggestion. And I’m sure he didn’t want anything bad to happen to someone who had deleted their wallet, where it could lead to disappointment. Satoshi’s message shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone because you never know what the future holds so you need to follow his advice. I found myself pondering for a moment when I read Satoshi’s message. And I think Satoshi’s words carry a lot of meaning if you think about them further. But he made his words so simple by just a few words. I’m sure Satoshi is someone with cognitive efficiency which is why he’s able to make complex things seem simple. And that’s just like the idea or even the vision behind Bitcoin which he created with the goal of making things easier for everyone even though there are complex technical aspects behind it.

(Source)

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

I do like this piece of advice and honestly I forgot he even said that but I remember reading it at some point in the past. It’s definitely some good advice to heed and you never know what will happen. Say bitcoin hits 10 million and suddenly that 20 or 30 bucks you forgot about in a wallet from 2017 becomes a small fortune! Good thing to know all past seed phrases when this potentially happens!

[hd49728]

I do like this piece of advice and honestly I forgot he even said that but I remember reading it at some point in the past. It’s definitely some good advice to heed and you never know what will happen. Say bitcoin hits 10 million and suddenly that 20 or 30 bucks you forgot about in a wallet from 2017 becomes a small fortune!

Bitcoin firstly needs to rise to $1M before hitting $10M that is a very far future for me so I don't think of $10M price for 1 BTC now. I don't imagine any future that Bitcoin will be traded around $10M when I will be still alive, it's unrealistic future with my limited lifespan.

$1M is quite possible and I don't know when it will come but quite possible, so I am determinant with my bitcoin accumulation and holding over time. It's a very long term accumulation, not only for me but for inheritance plan dedicated to my kids.

The purchasing power of satoshi has increased with time and we can easily see this trend with this Satoshi per dollar chart.
https://charts.bitbo.io/satoshi-per-dollar/

Satoshi Nakamoto in his discussion with Cypherpunks said about his vision for a future when 1 BTC is valued at $1M.
What happens when Bitcoin reaches 21M supply?
Why is Bitcoin’s supply limit set to 21 million?

Although Satoshi compares the price of Bitcoin to the Euro in his email, some simple mathematics indicates he may have had a much grander vision for Bitcoin—better explaining why the 21 million maximum figure was chosen.

At the time of Bitcoin's creation, the entire world's money supply stood at approximately $21 trillion. This figure, known as the M1 money supply, is made up of the total value of all the physical money in the world, including cash, coins, travelers' checks, and more.

If Bitcoin were to grow to become the single world currency—replacing all those that the M1 figure is comprised of—then each BTC would be worth $1 million. Because there are 100 million satoshi in each Bitcoin, this would place the value of each satoshi at $0.01.

[wapwapwendy]

Satoshi once advised against deleting a wallet for any reason. And he also suggested keeping or even copying the keys just in case. I personally think that Satoshi believed that a wallet you no longer use might be needed at some point in the future. Perhaps Satoshi was very serious in making that suggestion. And I’m sure he didn’t want anything bad to happen to someone who had deleted their wallet, where it could lead to disappointment. Satoshi’s message shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone because you never know what the future holds so you need to follow his advice. I found myself pondering for a moment when I read Satoshi’s message. And I think Satoshi’s words carry a lot of meaning if you think about them further. But he made his words so simple by just a few words. I’m sure Satoshi is someone with cognitive efficiency which is why he’s able to make complex things seem simple. And that’s just like the idea or even the vision behind Bitcoin which he created with the goal of making things easier for everyone even though there are complex technical aspects behind it.

https://i.ibb.co.com/FRvXWtW/Satoshi-Naka.png

(Source)

I’d like to know, do you also realize that this advice is very important to know or even to always follow?

Yup. Self-custody is one of Bitcoin’s biggest strengths, but it also comes with responsibility. Losing your keys can mean losing access forever, so proper backups and key management are just as important as holding the coins themselves.

[Adiljutt156]

I believe that Satoshi Nakamoto planned to donate his bitcoins (or some of them) to active users of the network at some point. 🙋

That's why he advised never to delete Bitcoin wallets.

Satoshi Nakamoto held over 1,000,000 coins, and he didn't seem to be a self-serving person. I'm sure he planned to donate his bitcoins to the community. Such a donation is entirely consistent with the idea of ​​decentralized coin storage (and Satoshi Nakamoto certainly valued decentralization). Decentralization is a fundamental principle of Bitcoin. If Satoshi Nakamoto hadn't disappeared and continued developing Bitcoin, some people might have criticized him for owning so many bitcoins. After all, mining difficulty was low in the early days. Therefore, I'm inclined to believe that Satoshi Nakamoto planned to donate his bitcoins to others.

This, incidentally, supports the theory that Satoshi Nakamoto, unfortunately, died. Had he lived, such a donation would certainly have taken place.  We would never have reached a situation where the majority of Bitcoin is in the hands of institutional players. But now that's a very real scenario. 🤷

I do believe its never been easy to reveal what he wants to do because its mystery which is not going to be solved in this era maybe after few years things will be have turn and truth came out from these shut doors even its just personal feeling with nothing is sure but his advice is surely have deep facts because many done mistakes and then have never been way of taking back anything just keep things on aside and wait for change also never been bad for anyone.


Satoshi Nakamoto is or was a man; it's never been revealed because no one has met him or had any contact with him ever. Just because of this, a few try to catch attention but have never been able to have success. What was he going to do with these 1,000,000 coins? It's also a mystery that is not possible to solve; even nothing is sure. Is he alive or not? Because, as talked about, nothing has any clues, so again, just keep his advice and try to stay with the things that he left for us.

[JaanusRaim]

There are countless reasons why an old and abandoned wallet might become (very) valuable; although the probability of any specific reason materializing is usually low, the sum of these probabilities is high.
Thus, deleting a cryptocurrency wallet is equivalent to burning a physical wallet without looking inside it 

[d5000]

So again, for this vulnerability you need to
- load a wallet from an archive by accident
- have the same special wallet you use
- run into malicious nodes that harvest that data
- use an IP that allows them to identify you...

And now the malicious person knows that individual A, living in south-east Paris, has had Bitcoins in his wallet a decade ago...

I don't understand what you mean with the second point (have the same special wallet). Perhaps that you continue to use the same software? That is quite common in the case of wallets like Electrum/Sparrow.

But point 3 is actually very realistic, as Cricktor already assumed. The point is mentioned in several privacy guides for Bitcoin, for example this one that was updated recently: https://www.learnbitcoin.com/rabbit-hole/bitcoin-privacy . There are public wallet explorers like the Chainalysis site walletexplorer.com, where (if you're unlucky) your wallet will be shown with the "secondary addresses". The old coins wouldn't be shown, but a malicious or simply curious person will have something to explore if they want.

Point 4 (IP that allows them to identify you) is also a trap you can run very fast into: simply open one recent wallet after the old wallet, or both at the same time. Even if using Tor this can "leak" the information that both wallets were opened on the same device, and Tor used the same connection ...

I agree however a bit with you, for most people the case of a robbery should be a minor problem, it is very unlikely because of that. But think about people living in authoritarian countries (Russia for example) who want to leave as little traces as possible in the Internet, also about their cryptocurrency usage. Or whatever reason you may have, not only as a criminal . For example, you may not want to mix KYCed and non-KYCed coins -- and the old wallet could just be the connection for the chain analysis guys to complete your puzzle, because you had worse privacy practices back then (very likely!). Or you're somewhat publicly exposed and don't want anybody to know that you're owning Bitcoins since 2012.

It is generally seen as best practice to try to keep wallets separate as much as possible.

PS: Ah, and I meant "target" in the sense that you're a target of chain analysis, or everybody who could be interested in your wallet, for whatever reason. This was not specific about thieves.

[Livingleged]

I do like this piece of advice and honestly I forgot he even said that but I remember reading it at some point in the past. It’s definitely some good advice to heed and you never know what will happen. Say bitcoin hits 10 million and suddenly that 20 or 30 bucks you forgot about in a wallet from 2017 becomes a small fortune! Good thing to know all past seed phrases when this potentially happens!

This is my first time seeing the advice from satoshi though, but from my instincts I have had the same thought about keeping wallets keys for future even it I don’t need to use the addresses at the moment, just incase of something that might happen in the future, I wouldn’t want to be part of people that would miss out in any donation or gift from someone who knows. And why delete wallet in the first place? It doesn’t profit one I anyway. My point is that if you really understand what you’re doing around bitcoin you do not need to be told not to delete things related to your wallet seeds, just because bitcoin was built to be decentralized.

[Dunamisx]

Thus, deleting a cryptocurrency wallet is equivalent to burning a physical wallet without looking inside it 

I still wonder why we should get rid of our bitcoin wallet when we can still have it and doing this cost us nothing, some some users may not know the benefit of this and as well doesn't know the risk it may bring when they threat to discuss their wallet.

Everything about what satoshi has developed as always been a positive impact on us both in the present and the future that lies ahead of us, it does not take us editing to maintain our wallet and enjoy using it for a longer period of time.

[TheDigitalMan]

I will admit I did not read every single post in this thread.  But I read quite a few.  What people seem to be missing regarding Satoshi's quote in this case is the context behind it.

"Sigh... why delete a wallet instead of moving it aside and keeping the old copy just in case? You should never delete a wallet."

When Satoshi made this quote the BIP39 Standard had not yet been proposed or adopted.  This quote was made pre September 2013.  Prior to the BIP39 Standard being adopted the bitcoin wallets did not have a seed phrase stored in them. They did not have a Master Private Key that all the child public addresses and child private keys were generated from.  The original bitcoin wallets as they existed in Satoshi's day simply generated random private keys and then the public receiving address that paired with that private key and this Public Key/Private Key pair was stored in the wallet.  I think the original wallets generated like 20 or 50 of these key pairs and then used them whenever you wanted to send or receive bitcoin.  Loss of these key pairs meant loss of your bitcoin.  There was no paper backup.  There was no seed phrase to write down.  All of that came with the BIP39 Standard that was adopted in 2013.  So when Satoshi talked about how to handle wallets that you were no longer using. His advice was to set them aside.  Keep a copy of them just in case.  Never delete them.  This advice stemmed from the fact that those wallets were the only place where the Private Keys existed to move your bitcoin. If you emptied a wallet and wasn't going to use it anymore then it was probably fine to delete it but just in case he suggested keeping an archive copy of it rather then delete it.  Just in case you had bitcoin that was returned to a a change address in that wallet and later you discovered this fact.  It would be nice if you could go back and retrieve your archived copy of the wallet and retrieve the bitcoin you discovered you accidentally left behind in that wallet.  Prior to BIP39 keeping up with your bitcoin was a real challenge! Each of the 20 or 50 addresses in each of those wallets had a different private key/seed phrase associated with each one of them. There was no single backup phrase that you could write down.

I just thought everyone should know why he recommended what he did.  Context makes all the difference!

Kresp Rowland

[#CapsLOck]

I believe the key difference to understand is that you are not deleting a wallet application. But rather you are losing the wallet. Even after the software is removed, the Bitcoin will not be destroyed  if the private keys or seed back up are kept in a safe place. The wallet can be restored at a later date. The true risk is losing the backup even more so if it is an address that can be used again for coins. For me, the lesson here from Satoshi's advice. Is to keep recoverability rather than an old wallet application installed forever.

[hd49728]

I believe the key difference to understand is that you are not deleting a wallet application. But rather you are losing the wallet. Even after the software is removed, the Bitcoin will not be destroyed  if the private keys or seed back up are kept in a safe place. The wallet can be restored at a later date.

You can create a paper wallet or a digital wallet file, and wallet software applications can be uninstalled on your devices, no problem. The condition is you must make your wallet backups, and must make backups accurately without any mistakes like typos of your wallet seed phrase, because wallet backups are what you need most to recover your wallets later.

It requires you always test your backups to recover that wallet, to make sure that two wallets: original, and recovered wallets are the same. If this recovery test gives good result, you can fund that wallet and use it.

The true risk is losing the backup even more so if it is an address that can be used again for coins.

If you make multiple wallet backups and store them safely at different locations, probability of losing all wallet backups is really small. People got troubles and lost their bitcoins mostly because they did not make backups, or made backups that can not be used to recover later like typos.