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One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

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Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#31

Post by sneak »

elondaits wrote: post #26
memco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is introducing a mechanism to allow access to certain data after passing: https://www.cultofmac.com/744814/apple-digital-legacy/ . It would be great to see more tools and services provide ways to pass on digital information so we don’t have too many haunted digital graveyards not too much digital treasure lying in waste.

LastPass has a “dead man switch” where my wife (authorized by me) can request access to my account and if I don’t respond for a month she gets it.

That means that LastPass themselves can access your account contents at any time, too.

That's an accident waiting to happen.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#32

Post by bewuethr »

memco wrote: post #10
macksd wrote: post #2

Now if I understand correctly, unless someone inherits a private key of his, his bitcoins are effectively dead now, right? I wonder how this will impact the economics of cryptocurrencies over time: I'm starting to see more and more reminders to congratulate dead people on work anniversaries on LinkedIn, and it feels quite morbid.

Apple is introducing a mechanism to allow access to certain data after passing: https://www.cultofmac.com/744814/apple-digital-legacy/ . It would be great to see more tools and services provide ways to pass on digital information so we don’t have too many haunted digital graveyards not too much digital treasure lying in waste.

GitHub does that, too: you can designate a "successor". https://docs.github.com/en/github/setting-up-and-managing-yo...

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#33

Post by sneak »

dheera wrote: post #24
memco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is introducing a mechanism to allow access to certain data after passing: https://www.cultofmac.com/744814/apple-digital-legacy/ . It would be great to see more tools and services provide ways to pass on digital information so we don’t have too many haunted digital graveyards not too much digital treasure lying in waste.

As much as I hope nothing happens to me, I've always thought about writing a "dead man switch" piece of code that sends all my keys and passwords to a couple of trusted people if multiple signals all suggest that the unfortunate has happened. For example, all of the following must be true: * Zero Github commits in a week * Zero Facebook or Instagram posts in a week * Zero e-mail outbox messages in a week * Zero smart…

You can just give private keys to a bunch of people, and give a cyphertext encrypted to all of them to your attorney, to be distributed upon your death.

Then you don't need complex technical triggers.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#34

Post by wmf »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #28

The craziest thing about this is the beach he died at. Playa Hermosa is pretty well known for mad riptides and not being such a fun place to surf or swim as a result. What the hell was he doing there swimming around casually? There's warning flags everywhere... you can see them in the local news article regarding this https://www.teletica.com/sucesos/extranjero-de-41-anos-murio... "Los hechos se dieron a eso de las 8…

He was a crypto billionaire, so either he was murdered by the G7 or he faked his own death.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#35

Post by mynameishere »

anonporridge wrote: post #6
macksd wrote: post #2

Now if I understand correctly, unless someone inherits a private key of his, his bitcoins are effectively dead now, right? I wonder how this will impact the economics of cryptocurrencies over time: I'm starting to see more and more reminders to congratulate dead people on work anniversaries on LinkedIn, and it feels quite morbid.

If he didn't have a backup plan in place to be accessible by his estate, then yes, the coins are dead. The coins dying with him are actually the best case scenario for all other holders. "Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone." - Satoshi Nakamoto

Some libertarian crank (I forget who) said that the best charity a person could do is to cash out their fortune and burn the paper dollars. This is a deflationary event and does just what you mention--gives everybody a little gift. Somehow a cynical suggestion like that is considered serious now. Because it is high-tech I guess.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#36

Post by cmelbye »

dheera wrote: post #21
anonporridge wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he didn't have a backup plan in place to be accessible by his estate, then yes, the coins are dead. The coins dying with him are actually the best case scenario for all other holders. "Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone." - Satoshi Nakamoto

Even if they didn't, the rest of the world could probably peacefully agree to a hard fork in which those coins stop existing. One of the disadvantages of crypto, I suppose, is that people could gang up and hard fork against any arbitrary billionaire even if they were alive.

Why would anyone do that? The stolen coins would become worthless as the other 49% of the network flee to a platform that doesn't come with the risk of arbitrary theft.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#37

Post by dheera »

sneak wrote: post #33
dheera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I hope nothing happens to me, I've always thought about writing a "dead man switch" piece of code that sends all my keys and passwords to a couple of trusted people if multiple signals all suggest that the unfortunate has happened. For example, all of the following must be true: * Zero Github commits in a week * Zero Facebook or Instagram posts in a week * Zero e-mail outbox messages in a week * Zero smart…

You can just give private keys to a bunch of people, and give a cyphertext encrypted to all of them to your attorney, to be distributed upon your death. Then you don't need complex technical triggers.

I suppose. But that means I must find an attorney first. What do they cost, like $900 an hour? ... I think that's part of what I'm trying to replace by technical means.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#38

Post by adanto6840 »

rawtxapp wrote: post #27
memco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is introducing a mechanism to allow access to certain data after passing: https://www.cultofmac.com/744814/apple-digital-legacy/ . It would be great to see more tools and services provide ways to pass on digital information so we don’t have too many haunted digital graveyards not too much digital treasure lying in waste.

Google also has a "dead man's switch": https://www.google.com/settings/account/inactive for the interested.

Probably due to Google Suite -- perhaps they have something similar available at the administrator level -- but that link shows me: "The setting you are looking for is not available for your account."

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#39

Post by cirrus3 »

memco wrote: post #10
macksd wrote: post #2

Now if I understand correctly, unless someone inherits a private key of his, his bitcoins are effectively dead now, right? I wonder how this will impact the economics of cryptocurrencies over time: I'm starting to see more and more reminders to congratulate dead people on work anniversaries on LinkedIn, and it feels quite morbid.

Apple is introducing a mechanism to allow access to certain data after passing: https://www.cultofmac.com/744814/apple-digital-legacy/ . It would be great to see more tools and services provide ways to pass on digital information so we don’t have too many haunted digital graveyards not too much digital treasure lying in waste.

I really like the idea of that upcoming service. But, not exactly where you want to store a piece of information worth $2B. A good old fashioned safety deposit box in a Swiss bank or something and several layers of trustees would be more applicable in this case.

Re: One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41

#40

Post by makotech222 »

macksd wrote: post #2

Now if I understand correctly, unless someone inherits a private key of his, his bitcoins are effectively dead now, right? I wonder how this will impact the economics of cryptocurrencies over time: I'm starting to see more and more reminders to congratulate dead people on work anniversaries on LinkedIn, and it feels quite morbid.

I'm really glad we burned a billion pounds of coal for those bitcoin, which are now useless. Very cool system here.
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