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Trance104 (OP)
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June 27, 2012, 11:23:04 PM |
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Back when BTC was young, I know I had an old wallet on an old computer and didn't backup/save anything. The BTC payouts were much larger years ago and I'm sure this scenario happened to people with "large" BTC wallets. Just curious...  |
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"Your bitcoin is secured in a way that is physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter a majority of miners, no matter what." -- Greg Maxwell
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Fuzzy
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June 27, 2012, 11:29:51 PM |
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They are lost. Forever...
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Red Emerald
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June 27, 2012, 11:31:13 PM |
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Or at least until someone breaks double sha256.
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Fuzzy
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June 27, 2012, 11:33:59 PM |
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Or at least until someone breaks double sha256.
I wouldn't hold my breath  |
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Trance104 (OP)
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June 28, 2012, 12:17:46 AM |
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They are lost. Forever...
That's disappointing... There should be a way to "somehow" gain access to idle wallets. Reward the miners somehow... Maybe once all bitcoins are... "mined". |
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Gomeler
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June 28, 2012, 12:23:02 AM |
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They are lost. Forever...
That's disappointing... There should be a way to "somehow" gain access to idle wallets. Reward the miners somehow... Maybe once all bitcoins are... "mined". There have been many discussions of this and they all end with the issue of people having cold storage wallets and cold coins. Go check the dev section of these forums -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0 |
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Dargo
Legendary
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Activity: 1820
Merit: 1000
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June 28, 2012, 01:31:26 AM |
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Right, how do you know it's a lost wallet versus a wallet in cold storage. I'd like to know what the current $ value of all lost coins is...huge.  |
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stevegee58
Legendary
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Activity: 916
Merit: 1003
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June 28, 2012, 01:32:49 AM |
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Quantum computers might crack it some day.
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You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
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muqali
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June 29, 2012, 03:28:54 AM |
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Quantum computers might crack it some day.
When our colonies on Mars rebel and overthrow us, they can come here and "crack" our old wallets and use the BTC. It'd be like a reverse stealing of the gold from the New World back in the day. Sort of. |
donations BTC: 1CaCwo4xneTqTLEdomW76Cg5NteZyvXi1c
donations LTC: LTcasvjtLuN92ks1Pc1qtkvE9PswsXEbev
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BoardGameCoin
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June 29, 2012, 03:31:43 AM |
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Or at least until someone breaks double sha256.
ECDSA is what allows spending. SHA256^2 prevents double spending. -bgc |
I'm selling great Minion Games like The Manhattan Project, Kingdom of Solomon and Venture Forth at 4% off retail starting June 2012. PM me or go to my thread in the Marketplace if you're interested. For Settlers/Dominion/Carcassone etc., I do email gift cards on Amazon for a 5% fee. PM if you're interested. |
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sadpandatech
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June 29, 2012, 04:47:53 AM |
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Quantum computers might crack it some day.
When our colonies on Mars rebel and overthrow us, they can come here and "crack" our old wallets and use the BTC. It'd be like a reverse stealing of the gold from the New World back in the day. Sort of. Now that would make for some juicy story additions to a good sci-fi movie. |
If you're not excited by the idea of being an early adopter 'now', then you should come back in three or four years and either tell us "Told you it'd never work!" or join what should, by then, be a much more stable and easier-to-use system.
- GA
It is being worked on by smart people. -DamienBlack
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Red Emerald
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June 29, 2012, 06:06:19 AM |
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Or at least until someone breaks double sha256.
ECDSA is what allows spending. SHA256^2 prevents double spending. -bgc Ah true. I actually meant to say breaks sha256 and ripemd-160. An attacker could maybe reverse a key from an address then, right? I also should have put a because I highly doubt this will happen. |
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drakahn
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June 29, 2012, 06:09:41 AM |
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Back when BTC was young, I know I had an old wallet on an old computer and didn't backup/save anything. The BTC payouts were much larger years ago and I'm sure this scenario happened to people with "large" BTC wallets. Just curious... i would hunt down that hard drive and hope i could recover the wallet (or at least some private keys) |
14ga8dJ6NGpiwQkNTXg7KzwozasfaXNfEU
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Raize
Donator
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1419
Merit: 1015
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June 29, 2012, 05:09:46 PM |
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Or at least until someone breaks double sha256.
ECDSA is what allows spending. SHA256^2 prevents double spending. -bgc I came here to say this too, there seem to be a lot of posts that are more "newbie-related" seeping out of the Newbie forum for some reason in the last couple months. |
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AzN1337c0d3r
Full Member
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Activity: 238
Merit: 100
★YoBit.Net★ 350+ Coins Exchange & Dice
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June 30, 2012, 11:03:18 AM |
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I'm curious if SHA256 collisions would allow us to potentially recover lost coins (or steal them...)?
I understand it is infeasible with current computing power, but quantum computing promises to effectively half the keylength.
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lassdas
Legendary
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Activity: 3649
Merit: 1412
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June 30, 2012, 01:47:42 PM |
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I'm curious if SHA256 collisions would allow us to potentially recover lost coins (or steal them...)?
I understand it is infeasible with current computing power, but quantum computing promises to effectively half the keylength.
The point is that if with quantum computing you're able to recover so called lost coins, you're also able to steal ALL coins. There's simply no difference between lost and non-lost coins, any lost coin recovery attemp would be the end of Bitcoin as a whole. |
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sadpandatech
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June 30, 2012, 01:59:41 PM |
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I'm curious if SHA256 collisions would allow us to potentially recover lost coins (or steal them...)?
I understand it is infeasible with current computing power, but quantum computing promises to effectively half the keylength.
The point is that if with quantum computing you're able to recover so called lost coins, you're also able to steal ALL coins. There's simply no difference between lost and non-lost coins, any lost coin recovery attemp would be the end of Bitcoin as a whole. aye, the one thing bitcoin has going for it there is that we are able to bump the new priv keys up to 512bit, 1024bit, etc etc. This would require anyone with coins still sitting in an old 256bit addy to move them to a new one to get that security though. |
If you're not excited by the idea of being an early adopter 'now', then you should come back in three or four years and either tell us "Told you it'd never work!" or join what should, by then, be a much more stable and easier-to-use system.
- GA
It is being worked on by smart people. -DamienBlack
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lassdas
Legendary
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Activity: 3649
Merit: 1412
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June 30, 2012, 06:28:43 PM |
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Yeah, that would be possible, it would also require anyone who owns physical bitcoins (e.g. Cascasius) to destroy and re-digitalize them. There will probably be millions of coins stolen in the meantime, what would make todays thefts look like peanuts. But at least the system might survive.  |
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AzN1337c0d3r
Full Member
Offline
Activity: 238
Merit: 100
★YoBit.Net★ 350+ Coins Exchange & Dice
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July 01, 2012, 03:30:38 AM |
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aye, the one thing bitcoin has going for it there is that we are able to bump the new priv keys up to 512bit, 1024bit, etc etc. This would require anyone with coins still sitting in an old 256bit addy to move them to a new one to get that security though.
The lost bitcoins would be sitting in addresses which would not have been "upgraded". It might be possible we take advantage of this vulnerability to recover "lost" bitcoins. If ASICs in the future are in the range of $/TH and the block reward is low enough, it might make sense for miners to attempt to "crack" these vulnerable addresses and release the stagnant coins instead of mining new coins. |
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sadpandatech
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July 01, 2012, 03:33:21 AM |
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aye, the one thing bitcoin has going for it there is that we are able to bump the new priv keys up to 512bit, 1024bit, etc etc. This would require anyone with coins still sitting in an old 256bit addy to move them to a new one to get that security though.
The lost bitcoins would be sitting in addresses which would not have been "upgraded". It might be possible we take advantage of this vulnerability to recover "lost" bitcoins. If ASICs in the future are in the range of $/TH and the block reward is low enough, it might make sense for miners to attempt to "crack" these vulnerable addresses and release the stagnant coins instead of mining new coins. You would hope if the old address, even if cold storage had real owners any more they would be still keeping up on Bitcoins and if smart would not only move their cold storage BTC to a new regular addy periodicly to help avoid that but would surely get their ass in gear to move to new 512bit addy asap if it was implemented because of the potential for new tech to greatly reduce the collision time. |
If you're not excited by the idea of being an early adopter 'now', then you should come back in three or four years and either tell us "Told you it'd never work!" or join what should, by then, be a much more stable and easier-to-use system.
- GA
It is being worked on by smart people. -DamienBlack
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