Topic: Why doesn't bitcoin have a "freeze" function? - page 5. (Read 1645 times)

I think that the known phrase “be your own bank” has made you think of Bitcoin falsely. A bank has customers. If we assume that every bank needs customers to operate, then you're not your own bank with Bitcoin; you just have 100% control over your funds.

How did they gain access to your private key? If they gained access to it, what makes you think that they don't have the “freezing key” as well?

If they want to rip you off, they'll find a way. The easiest way that just came up to me is to run a node. Once you broadcasted your unfreezing state which would end up in the mempool, they'd instantly recognize it and broadcast their fraudulent transaction.

That's why banks have die packs so that they can make their own money unusable when someone try and steal it. Same idea boss. Someone got my private key but I freeze the address, well, they can't do anything. But that does bring up a good question. How would I know if someone had my private key? Because they might just be waiting until I unfroze the address to try and do a transaction. I better make sure I unfreeze quickly and broadcast a transaction with big fee right? I guess it would be nice to have some way of knowing failed transaction attempts using my private key. You know how credit cards can send you alerts when someone tries to use your card fraudulently? That might be asking for too much though.

What I'm saying is that there are no reasons to be the third party who would freeze/unfreeze your funds, since you essentially already do that with your private keys. Freezing is a “feature” that comes when the funds are under someone else's custody and they allow you to take actions with them in an extent. You don't own the funds, this is why you may get frozen until you provide a legitimate element which may be enough for them to unfreeze you.

Freezing funds is a condition where the trusted third party requires information from their client. Implementing what we've been discussing is like being able for a bank to freeze their own money.

You could make the same argument about the OP's online banking credentials. Although, in theory, one might take additional steps to secure a "freezing" key to reduce the chances a malicious actor would be able to "unfreeze" coin.

I do agree that the OPs proposal is not something that would improve bitcoin. All of my coin is in a perpetual "frozen" state until I sign a transaction that moves my coin to another address with my cryptographic keys securing my coin. If anyone tries to move my coin without the required signature(s), all nodes, including the miners will reject this transaction as invalid. I was merely playing devils-advocate in giving a technical alternative to what others were proposing. 

If they believe they have something to hide, they will. Encrypting messages isn't compulsory, but with your consent, you can choose not to trust the specific third party. You can even transact the keys via USB and trust none.

But, if it was somehow compromised, it could still be unfreezed by someone else. It wouldn't differ from the classic private key way that spends outputs and thus, it wouldn't have any reason of existence.

You are correct, but I believe the practice you describe is rare for people communicating on this forum, which is why I said "for most people on this forum".

In theory, a second key could be used to "freeze" and "unfreeze" outputs, which is separate from the key used to sign said inputs.

I don't see any reason why something like this would ever be implemented because it would result in additional transactions that are freezing and unfreezing outputs, and it would make keeping track of the UTXO set more complicated, both without any meaningful benefit.

I understand a person can't just spend bitcoin without providing a digital signature belonging to the private key on that address.


We'll see. I'm going to try and cook something up in my laboratory and post when I'm done.

I think that you haven't understood something very important. The system works autonomously. The nodes have to somehow verify that you're indeed the owner of a certain address whether you want to spend from that address or “freeze” it. So, you'd still have to provide a digital signature for each “freezing” action you made. Thus, “freezing” wouldn't differ from spending outputs.

That's why it can't be implemented with the way you want. A third party is always required.

Even the solution your bank is offering where you can freeze your credit card is a very basic form of protection. You said it yourself, all you need to do to freeze your card is log in to your online banking account and click the freeze button. That's it.

Why do you feel like that option is safer than creating an additional wallet protected with a separate passphrase? You can then move any coins you want to "freeze" to that new passphrase-protected wallet, and once you want to access them, you "unfreeze" your hidden wallet by entering the correct passphrase.

The passphrase and your banks' freeze option both offer a second layer of security on top of the first layer. The first layer being your credit card number + the CVV, and your seed phrase. Your second layer is the passphrase and your banking login details. Losing the first layer doesn't give anyone access to your money. Losing both, gives anyone who has it full control.

Do nothing until I need to unfreeze them and spend something. then freeze them back.


No just whenever I want to.


You would need to read over the whole thread...

Yes, nearly all. Not all.

I have never used a third party for escrowing, I just gave an example. You can find bunch of such services here, though:

• Escrow Service of Bl4nkcode [Active]
• Dream's Marketplace ~ ESCROW SERVICE ($2 MILLION+) ~ Buy and Sell with Crypto
• 💹📈 Royse777🧢: Campaign Management, Translation & Escrow Service 💪🔥

And do what next? Be able to unfreeze them after a certain period of time? There's locktime for that.

ok boss if you say so but if you read that wikipedia it does say

Money is historically an emergent market phenomenon establishing a commodity money, but nearly all contemporary money systems are based on fiat money.

So that means we can refer to fiat money as simply money. And everyone will know what I'm talking about right?

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Who's your trusted third party? So we can all use them.


that's a bad form of freezing. the kind i'm talking about is initiated by the user themself as a form of protection of assets. there are issues with how to implement something like that but that's another story!


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This includes that the keys have been transacted within this forum's private messaging system. The parties can communicate outside of the forum and exchange their keys there.

This is off-topic in this thread, however even if you are encrypting a message to someone, for most people on this forum, you are trusting that the administrator has not changed the displayed encryption key of the person you are interacting with. For example, I may make public an encryption key, 'ABC', however, it may be changed by the administration to 'DEF' and anytime anyone encrypts a message to encryption key 'DEF', the administration may automatically decrypt the message, store it for later reading, and encrypt the decrypted message to encryption key 'ABC'. Do I think the bitcointalk administration is doing anything like this? No, absolutely not, however, I would not rule it out on other forums, especially DNM forums.

Okay, good. If you use maximum measures to protect any third party from ever learning your private key, no third party will ever have the ability to spend any of your coin. No one can spend your coin without your private key. Your coin will be frozen until you sign and broadcast a transaction that spends your coin.

Many companies also utilize a "hot wallet" for smaller amounts whose private keys are stored on a computer connected to the internet, and a "cold wallet" for larger amounts whose private keys are stored on devices that never touch the internet. This setup is very similar to what you are asking for, as it is more difficult to spend any coin from the "cold wallet" and spending said coin requires additional steps.

Money is everything that can be accepted between people as a medium of exchange. The money of the government is called “fiat”. If we decided to accept mushrooms as a way to transact, we'd essentially consider them money whether we were two people or a billion.

I disagree. If I want to make an escrow, I'll choose someone I trust and thus, a trusted third party. When I want to send a message and I don't trust the administrators I won't have to reveal them the content of my message; I'll encrypt it. Thus, they'll simply be third parties.

How do you understand “freezing”? I do it as followed:  Someone suspends you from transacting your own money while you may have or not told them to.

The correct term is "fiat" not money.
Money is any object or verifiable record that is used for payment. So technically money is the bigger category that contains both fiat and bitcoin.

Valid point, as long as OP willing to wait (at least 3 months) for Taproot activation and multi-sig wallet which support Taproot.

Money is different than bitcoin. Money belongs to the government and they control it. Banks are part of that system. Bitcoin is totally different. The government also has insurance on your money so they guarantee you can't lose it. I don't think they could do that for bitcoin.
Of course, it can be debated whether the us government fdic insurance really means anything or not. But I'm not here to make that discussion :-)


There is no such thing as a "trusted third party" there are just "third parties" in view of things. But hey everyone can see things how they wish. Now there may be such things as "parties you are kind of forced to trust but really don't want to" etc. I'm sure we all know abut that.



I think usdc has a feature where they (THE ADMINS) can freeze particular addresses. I'm against that to be quite honest. But I'm all for each individual having soverignty to manage their own funds and freeze them if they had the ability to. THANKS.

But, you do trust a bank for holding your money which can be frozen anytime, right?

There are lots of problems with trusting someone, but only if you have a trusted third party, you can use this frozen “feature”.

But, for the bank, the money aren't frozen. They can move them whenever they want. Again, you have to be their client in order to freeze your own money.

Yes it was wonderful and yes I did read it. I'll make up a more formal reply to his posting in that case. Since you seem to feel that I didn't notice it. thanks

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You just gave me another amazing idea! But I'm not sure if it would be possible to implement but I'll maybe try and think about it a bit more and make a posting sometime. I don't think the boys can handle too many new ideas in one single thread you know

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I'm not sure why it is but I don't think I would trust anyone with holding my bitcoin for me. But yet, I trust them with my small lifetime savings they haven't stole it from me yet and they do let me spend it if i want to but I'm not dumb enough to think that they are my friend. And that they wouldn't do what is in their best interest even if it hurt me, a customer, if it came to that. I don't mind my cash being under their control but I do mind my bitcoin being in that status! Now putting an flash drive with my private key inside a lockbox at the bank well i don't consider that being under their control. they're not even supposed to open the box.


the problem with trusting someone like is they might lock your funds when you don't want them to and never gave them permission to. they might go out of business. they might have a rogue employee that goes on a spending spree with my bitcoin. never say never.


I can play the role of the bank too, if I have the features built into the particular cryptocurrency such as the ability to freeze and unfreeze my own address.



The problem with the above scenario is I have no way of knowing how good of a job they are actually doing and as you said I have to just "trust". The last thing I want is handing over complete control of bitcoins to a custodial service because I am not sure they are going to be trustworthy. Custodial services could freeze your account if they wanted to without your permission. What would you do then?



Well I don't think coinbase has very good customer service. I would be very hesitant to do business with a company who I can't get ahold of on the phone anytime I want to. Now I can get off my soapbox.

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