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Richest Bitcoin Addresses

bitcoinrichlist.com

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Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#181

Post by cromwellian »

chrisacky wrote: post #23

Can you imagine how many of these BTCs are actually lost forever. Look at this address: http://bitcoinrichlist.com/address/198aMn6ZYAczwrE5NvNTUMyJ5... The last time this address was touched was 2009, and has an even 8,000 coins (back in the day, this only amounted to 320 mined blocks. You could do that in what?... a few hours/half days?[1]) The owner probably ran his system for a few hours, collected 8000 coins, tho…

This seems like a fundamental flaw in the currency that makes it's deflationary properties worse.

Let's say bitcoin is to last a century, over time, there will be gradual losses to all kinds of problems, like hardware failures, owner errors, etc that cause lost of wallets, and thus, coins, forever.

There's no way to replace these, so over time, the total number of coins it not only limited, but after the last bitcoin is mined, it must decrease.

This suggests to me that bitcoin is a marvelous experiment that finally proved that such a currency is possible on a wide scale, but as a foundational currency, it has serious flaws, and it sounds like it needs to ultimately be replaced by a Bitcoin 2.0.

However, creating a new Bitcoin that is incompatible with the old would massively destroy value in the old system, so it's an interesting proposition as to how you can 'version' the Bitcoin protocol over time while not causing great upheaval.

Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#182

Post by lhgaghl »

mike_esspe wrote: post #165
lhgaghl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, how can you break EC but not be able steal people's money? Similarly, if you found had preimage attack for ripemd160(sha256(x)) (you can find a public key with the same hash as any other hash), how could you not steal people's money?

To break EC you need to get EC public key. You can't get it unless bitcoin address was reused. If you found pre-image for ripemd160(sha256(x)), you still need to find a private key for it.

Say public key x receives 1 BTC in block A. I'm guessing it's encoded as ripemd160(sha256(o)) -> 1 BTC -> ripemd160(sha256((x)) where o is some other public key with sufficient funds. I create a new key pair with public key y, such that ripemd160(sha256((x)) = ripemd160(sha256((y)). From now on let's call this address hash h.

In block B, I make a transaction h -> 1 BTC -> s. Where s is a securely generated public key that I own. I then sign this transaction with my forged public key, which hashes to h.

How does this not give me x's money?

Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#184

Post by bunderbunder »

nilkn wrote: post #178
pedalpete wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the current fluctuation is only a result of newness of bitcoin and that over the years as it becomes more familiar, the fluctuation will mirror more common currencies. I suspect that in order for that to happen, it will need to become more liquid, with more places accepting bitcoin for purchases, and more people using bitcoin to purchase goods rather than as an investment tool.

The "problem" is that the number of bitcoins is asymptotically bounded from above, but there is so far as we know no similar bound on human productivity and output. So there's really no reason to think that the deflation of bitcoin would ever die off. At most it would slow down, as right now the upward trend is fueled not just by the "natural" deflation of the currency but also as it plays catch-up to the market cap…

It's worse than that. As the post at the root of this thread observes, it's possible for bitcoins to be lost forever. So while the total number of possible BTC is merely asymptotically bounded, the actual number of BTC in circulation is going to peak and then go into a period of inexorable decline once the rate at which BTC are "destroyed" by data loss exceeds the rate at which BTC can be mined.

Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#185

Post by mike_esspe »

lhgaghl wrote: post #182
mike_esspe wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To break EC you need to get EC public key. You can't get it unless bitcoin address was reused. If you found pre-image for ripemd160(sha256(x)), you still need to find a private key for it.

Say public key x receives 1 BTC in block A. I'm guessing it's encoded as ripemd160(sha256(o)) -> 1 BTC -> ripemd160(sha256((x)) where o is some other public key with sufficient funds. I create a new key pair with public key y, such that ripemd160(sha256((x)) = ripemd160(sha256((y)). From now on let's call this address hash h. In block B, I make a transaction h -> 1 BTC -> s. Where s is a securely generated public key…

If you can create a pair of (private key, public key with collision), then yes bitcoin will be broken.

Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#186

Post by josephagoss »

dontblink wrote: post #176
hnha wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also take just one day if you are lucky. It impossible to predict, just like the future of bitcoin.

Equivalent of a bitcoin lottery?

If you want to play the Bitcoin lottery, it's a far better idea to focus your computing power on solo mining. You have far more chance guessing a 25 bitcoin block than getting a valid private key.

Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#187

Post by samolang »

cromwellian wrote: post #181
chrisacky wrote: post #23

Can you imagine how many of these BTCs are actually lost forever. Look at this address: http://bitcoinrichlist.com/address/198aMn6ZYAczwrE5NvNTUMyJ5... The last time this address was touched was 2009, and has an even 8,000 coins (back in the day, this only amounted to 320 mined blocks. You could do that in what?... a few hours/half days?[1]) The owner probably ran his system for a few hours, collected 8000 coins, tho…

This seems like a fundamental flaw in the currency that makes it's deflationary properties worse. Let's say bitcoin is to last a century, over time, there will be gradual losses to all kinds of problems, like hardware failures, owner errors, etc that cause lost of wallets, and thus, coins, forever. There's no way to replace these, so over time, the total number of coins it not only limited, but after the last bitcoin…

Are there any studies on the rate at which physical money disappears from the system? I know physical money can be printed to make up for it, but like all things the electronic counter part of physical money will become much more reliable than physical money over time. Do you worry about google corrupting a digital file you emailed to yourself?

Re: Richest Bitcoin Addresses

#188

Post by fat0wl »

olalonde wrote: post #174
fat0wl wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eh I hear what you're saying but i just don't believe this one. .com addresses appreciated in value because they are an actual good -- an address on the web that only 1 person can own. Bitcoin is a currency that isn't serving its purpose yet and whose function can be easily mimicked. All it is is an open source codebase & some infrastructure. If another coin (Litecoin, for example) were to take off, they would just a…

> Point being, it isn't the sole implementation of this concept. .com addresses are by nature unique. There are alt DNS systems as well. IMO, the best analogy for Bitcoin is gold. Gold is valued way beyond its intrinsic value and yet, few people claim that gold is a pyramid scheme.

hah sure there are alternate DNS systems but there's only one that matters... the one recognized by the major ISPs.

I don't want to get into the other thing. There are a ton of things that distinguish gold from BTC. For one, it has an intrinsic value. As in, "worst case scenario I have to sell this gold to a metalworker/scientist/jeweler/whoever who worse with gold".

If Bitcoin doomsday hits who is gonna pay a cent for one more file on their system. Useless bytes of data are not a commodity.

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