One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41 • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by zucker42 » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

cirrus3 wrote: post #39

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.

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.

I would use Shamir's Secret Sharing and split it up over multiple different physical and/or digital locations.

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

#52

Post by anonporridge » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #35

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

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.

Na, that's stupid with cash because we can arbitrarily print more of it. Any cash burning event would be of marginal collective contribution.

It actually matters with bitcoin because of the hard supply cap. Every lost coin shrinks the pie.

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

#53

Post by pennaMan » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #16

taway789 wrote: post #11

Popescu, for those who knew him, was utter scum. A sociopathic narcissistic villain, it's hard to feel anything but relief that the world is now better with his passing. If you have doubts as to the validity of my characterization, a few minutes reading his blog (trilema) will prove enlightening.

It may be the way I was brought up, but, you know, the guy is dead. He can't defend himself. Especially from nameless attackers. Just leave him alone.

Strange, on the McAfee thread people where bathing in hate for the guy and I kinda respected his crazy life.

This guy, being my conational that I never heard of, I got into a bit of digging and discovered a really creepy couple of blogs of women with CS PhDs that talk about him like some kind of cult leader and at the same time apparently the man regularly had 4chan level public discourse. What's up with that? Does anyone have info on this? Maybe the blog authors could even clear it up in this thread! But instead the thread gets buried because speaking of the dead (that did not lead a publicly known degenerate lifestyle apparently) is frowned upon.

News of death can be a good trigger to uncover knowledge. Choosing ignorance and shutting down speech because of cultural afterlife superstitions is not productive.

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

#54

Post by paulpauper » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #5

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 don't think anybody is stupid enough to keep $1 Billion in some wallet protected only by their private key. That would mean putting themselves in great danger.

but that is how btc works. All BTC are tied to private keys.

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

#55

Post by bpodgursky » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #18

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

not really sustainable though is it?

The currency is deflationary but you don't have any fundamental issues until you have issues subdividing the currency, but given that the protocol supports dividing down to 0.00000001 BTC that's not a significant issue (and I'm sure the community would patch that long before it became a problem).

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

#56

Post by xkjkls » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:24 AM UTC

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…

What if you go on vacation for a week and your email server goes down?

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

#57

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:24 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #18

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

not really sustainable though is it?

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by bradleyjg » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:24 AM UTC

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…

Use Shamir’s secret sharing algorithm. If 5 out of 7 trusted people want to decrypt you data there’s probably a good reason.

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

#59

Post by BrissyCoder » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:24 AM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #43

Never heard of the guy even though I follow crypto closely . Back in 2010-2013 or so a lot of people quietly amassed a fortune. His death effectively reduces the supply by about .13%, which goes to show just how big bitcoin is.

>.13%

That actually seems like rather a lot to me in a single blow (if the keys are actually lost forever of course).

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

#60

Post by meowkit » Tue, Jun 29, 2021, 12:24 AM UTC

senectus1 wrote: post #18

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

not really sustainable though is it?

Bitcoins can be split down to 8 decimal places.

Given the current loss/mining rate its totally possible for BTC to become difficult to operate, but its also possible for the mining cap to be removed or for coins to be split further.