Topic: Theymos: “Bitcoins Belonging to Satoshi Should Be Destroyed” - page 10. (Read 18611 times)

Bull-fucking-shit. You ('you' being anyone or any group of people) have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not those coins are abandoned. You also have no way of knowing when or even if they will be stolen.

Again, in case you are still blind to the moral principle, the only person who has a legitimate claim on managing the risk is the owner of the coins themselves. Any lesser standard is simply theft.

Well in this case, theft of the contents of that wallet will probably lead to in the worst case, the death of btc. I'm not talking about releasing millions of BTCBTCBTC in the market I meant the trust over bitcoin's security. IMO that wallet's private key is long lost and in the case a theft would occur it would mean there's a loophole in the network.

it is a bad idea. currently very many people who changed his life because bitcoin, I guess if it was to do, and because the price of bitcoin unstable, I think that thinking is very wrong. no matter what price and who made bitcoin, but if it really can make a lot of people's lives turn into to something better, then there is no reason to be destroyed bitcoin

Another historical example that comes to mind is the Great Depression. A large fraction of banks failed in the U.S., with depositors losing all their money. In the aftermath of that disaster safeguards such as the FDIC were instituted, insuring the funds of individuals in bankrupt banks so that people no longer lost their savings when a bank went under.

Despite this extremely successful safeguard, for the rest of their lives huge numbers of people flat out refused to entrust banks with their savings. I was a financial planner for a bit back in the early 90's and heard many accounts of how older people who remembered that era were still, right up to the 90's, refusing to trust the banks or deal with them.

So the notion that a QC breach and subsequent theft of a million or millions of bitcoins would be a transient event strikes me as completely contrary to historical example on two counts. On the contrary I think it would deeply scar people's psyches, even if they rationally "knew" that the issue had been fixed with new algorithms, etc.

BurtW, you might want to consider the example of Vericoin. Vericoin had a market cap of around $6 million when Mintpal was hacked and 30% of all Vericoin was stolen. The devs orchestrated a rollback of the blockchain to cancel the theft. Despite this defeat of the thieves, the coin lost a tremendous percentage of its value in the ensuing uproar, and although it has recovered a bit since then it is nowhere near the $6M figure.

So your last bullet point, I think, is unlikely. After such a dramatic event the price would probably be permanently impaired, and be at a small fraction of its prior price for a good while. And that means there are a lot more losers than winners.

I still think people are failing to address the topic Theymos raised, and are instead substituting their own vision for the example he was giving. People keep talking about "their" coins and not having them stolen. But in the actual example, the only coins affected are those that have been for all practical purposes abandoned - and WILL be stolen. If you care about your coins, as each of you has demonstrated, you wouldn't be falling into the category of those at risk. By all means, this whole subject should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. But it's pollyanish to think that if such a situation arose that having a huge fraction of coins fall into the hands of thieves eager to dispose of them would be a neutral or transient event.

The irony here is that, concerned about the value of your coins, many of you are staking out a position that would destroy the value of those coins if such an event came to pass.

I understand jbreher's philosophical position and agree.

I would also like to reiterate my pragmatic position.  The worst case scenario is that about 1M (yes I pulled that number out of my ass) coins get stolen by an entity who has access to and pays for a QC to break all the addresses.  Then this party dumps them all on the market hoping to sell them all before the price of BTC tanks due to everyone noticing the theft.  Of course the theft and dump would be noticed.  The price would crash.  Since they are trying to dump all those coins at once they will most likely get caught.

Those of us who do not panic will buy up coins at the bottom and ride them as they price recovers.

All the remaining QC vulnerable coins are moved to new QC hardened addresses by those that either sell them in the panic or move them for safety.

End result:

Culprits probably caught.
A bunch of people panic and lose a lot of money.
Another bunch of people take advantage of the buying opportunity and make a lot of profit.
The price recovers once the dust clears and all/most the coins are on QC resistant addresses.

And that is the worst case scenario if we simply implement the new QC resistant addresses when needed and drop this whole idea of destroying coins.

Your assertion is absolutely FALSE. I am responding directly to theymos' evil proposition - that coins legitimately belonging to someone -- or with no way of knowing whether or not they legitimately belong to someone (which from an ethical standpoint is exactly the same thing) -- should be stolen and burned by the collective at some (unknowable) time before some nefarious actor manages to steal them for his/her own.

Why don't *you* read what *I* wrote, eh?

Did you somehow miss this little bit that theymos has re-asserted? Even though you yourself quoted it?


Nobody has a right (and the collective is just another nobody) to destroy coins they do not themselves own. Fucking period. The fact that they are subsequently destroyed does not magically render it 'not-theft'.

I can hardly believe all y'all covetous crass craven cretins are even entertaining the notion. Or publicly admitting to such an offense.