There is the possibility that the key does not exist anymore. That is the only scenario where it would make sense to claim to have invented Bitcoin without being able to prove it.
But yeah, the stories are dubious from either side.
But yeah, the stories are dubious from either side.
In that case, what would be the point of arguing about who owns them?
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
“We believe the evidence will show there was a partnership to create and mine over one million bitcoin,” said Vel Freedman, a lawyer for the Kleiman family.”
these are not the words of a confident lawyer.
these are not the words of a confident lawyer.
Ferocitus
Deity
Has any major media outlet reported on this case?
All I can find are reports from Coin Desk, coingeek and other BTC related sites.
All I can find are reports from Coin Desk, coingeek and other BTC related sites.
First quantum computer to pack 100 qubits enters crowded race
I think you need about 1,000 qubits to find the private key of a bitcoin wallet. So it all depends on the error handling, but with the frequency of news in this field I would not bet on it being a long time, and that is what you are doing if you use bitcoin as a store of value or speculative instrument.
The innards of an IBM quantum computer show the tangle of cables used to control and read out its qubits. Kind of a pretty computer really. I wonder if that was a design consideration.
IBM’s newest quantum-computing chip, revealed on 15 November, established a milestone of sorts: it packs in 127 quantum bits (qubits), making it the first such device to reach 3 digits. But the achievement is only one step in an aggressive agenda boosted by billions of dollars in investments across the industry.
The ‘Eagle’ chip is a step towards IBM’s goal of creating a 433-qubit quantum processor next year, followed by one with 1,121 qubits, named Condor, by 2023.
Dealing with errors is particularly difficult, because the laws of physics prevent quantum computers from using the error-correcting methods of classical machines, which typically require keeping multiple copies of each bit.
Instead, researchers aim to build ‘logical qubits’ — in which almost all errors can be identified and corrected — from complicated arrangements of many physical qubits. The procedures so far proposed typically demand that each logical qubit contain around 1,000 physical qubits, although that ratio depends on the intrinsic fidelity — the error-resistance — of the physical qubits, says Dzurak.
IonQ co-founder Christopher Monroe, a physicist at the University of Maryland, and his co-workers last month reported a fault-tolerant logical qubit made from just 13 trapped-ion qubits, although Dzurak says that its degree of error-correction was “still quite some way from what is needed for a useful quantum computer, which needs logical error rates well below one in a million”.
The Google team, meanwhile, has achieved similar logical error rates using 21 superconducting qubits: again, “an important result”, says Dzurak, but still far from what is needed to crack the error-correction problem.
The ‘Eagle’ chip is a step towards IBM’s goal of creating a 433-qubit quantum processor next year, followed by one with 1,121 qubits, named Condor, by 2023.
Dealing with errors is particularly difficult, because the laws of physics prevent quantum computers from using the error-correcting methods of classical machines, which typically require keeping multiple copies of each bit.
Instead, researchers aim to build ‘logical qubits’ — in which almost all errors can be identified and corrected — from complicated arrangements of many physical qubits. The procedures so far proposed typically demand that each logical qubit contain around 1,000 physical qubits, although that ratio depends on the intrinsic fidelity — the error-resistance — of the physical qubits, says Dzurak.
IonQ co-founder Christopher Monroe, a physicist at the University of Maryland, and his co-workers last month reported a fault-tolerant logical qubit made from just 13 trapped-ion qubits, although Dzurak says that its degree of error-correction was “still quite some way from what is needed for a useful quantum computer, which needs logical error rates well below one in a million”.
The Google team, meanwhile, has achieved similar logical error rates using 21 superconducting qubits: again, “an important result”, says Dzurak, but still far from what is needed to crack the error-correction problem.
I think you need about 1,000 qubits to find the private key of a bitcoin wallet. So it all depends on the error handling, but with the frequency of news in this field I would not bet on it being a long time, and that is what you are doing if you use bitcoin as a store of value or speculative instrument.
The innards of an IBM quantum computer show the tangle of cables used to control and read out its qubits. Kind of a pretty computer really. I wonder if that was a design consideration.
What does it mean if you can do this? Steal anyone's coins? Crack any encryption?
I am not sure it is stealing, as there is nothing more inherently legal about mining compared to finding a private key, but yes it allows you to create transactions in the same way as the person who created the wallet. It does allow you to crack other forms of encryption that rely on similar maths, but with say PGP you can always increase your key length. With bitcoin you are stuck with the current size unless everyone (or 51% or something) agrees to change.
It is worth noting that messages previously encrypted with lower length keys will be vulnerable. If you want to keep data secure it would be worth using a long key now. 4096 is pretty common these days, and does not take long on any computer made in the last decade.
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Sadly all I ever did with Bitcoin was spend them.. Back when they were about £1 each...
Never in my wallet for more than an instant transaction.
It sucks but its a common story. Not unlike my mate who mined a few for fun, but has long since lost any way to access them.
Never in my wallet for more than an instant transaction.
It sucks but its a common story. Not unlike my mate who mined a few for fun, but has long since lost any way to access them.
I think that is the only sensible way to use them, as a medium of exchange for things you cannot buy for fiat, not a store of value.
I'd rather be a multimillionaire that accusations of being sensible, but such is life!
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Back when Bitcoin was invented and started getting talked about on various forums where geeks and nerds and other subcultures who might care about such a thing congregate, my initial thought was that it was a stupid idea, because surely one day we'll have quantum computers capable of breaking any encryption in place, so why bother investing in something that will one day go away and/or fall apart?
Turns out that quantum computers aren't really going to be a problem. There's algorithms that can be used instead of the current encryption (on the blockchains) that will guard against any sort of quantum computer hackage. From what I understand several blockchains are already using this algorithm/tech, while others can be upgraded if this ever becomes a problem.
The only real issue is that it can often take months and sometimes years to push out a big upgrade to a blockchain.. It takes so long mainly because you don't want to create a problem that could devalue the entire ecosystem, by introducing a tiny bug or incompatibility or something unforseen. So these things get tested to hell and back before being slowly pushed out. So if one day the NSA announced that quantum computers actually exist and you can how buy them @ Target or wherever Americans buy computers, then this would be a problem. Those blockchains that aren't upgraded yet are going to have to scramble, but it will take them a while to catch up to speed. It seems that in this window the value of whatever coins there exist on this blockchain would drop significantly, as hackers attack the network and grab what they can. In theory Proof-of-stake can guard against something like this, so it might not even be a problem in this scenario. I'm not really sure.
S'more details I didn't read, there's probably a decent overview of this sort of thing here
stinkubus
Emperor
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For the life of me I'll never understand why these things appeal to people beyond the chance to gamble on them.
If the quantity in circulation has an upper bound then they are inherently deflationary and thus unsuitable for use as a currency. If the quantity in circulation has no upper bound then you're just feeding your money into a Ponzi scheme.
If the quantity in circulation has an upper bound then they are inherently deflationary and thus unsuitable for use as a currency. If the quantity in circulation has no upper bound then you're just feeding your money into a Ponzi scheme.
I have said it before, and no one believes me. I do not think deflation is inherently bad. I think a deflationary environment could push against consumerism and towards a more environmentally friendly society. I do not think bitcoin is the way to do it though.
Deflation doesn't work for a currency, but Bitcoin will never be a currency. It will be an asset store-of-value.
It's been Bitcoin (specifically) that has had very few "upgrades", right? Like usually other coins are split off from the upgrading process, where a fork will diverge and create two cryptos? Then we have to guess whether the holders of Bitcoin will be smart enough to allow the bitcoin blockchain to upgrade.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Yeah, exactly. There are coins out there that are designed to act more as a currency, but IMO you are right that bitcoin is a much better store of value rather than an outright currency.
From what I understand, if not all nodes upgrade to the new version, then you end up with 2 coins. But if everybody upgrades and goes along with the upgrade, then the split/fork doesn't happen. That's supposedly what happened with Ethereum and ETH classic (they split in two at some point, ETH classic is the original that refused to upgrade or whatever, ETH is the new wave ETH).. and I think the same thing happened to Bitcoin.. and Bitcoin classic? But I think the latter ended up dying off, while ETH Classic is still sort of going.
It's been pointed out in this thread that the technology behind the blockchain is what attracts some people to it. Most investors are only looking to make a buck, as you say
Most (all?) tokenomics I ever researched have been a lot more complex and nuanced than that. i.e. it's not that simple, from what I understand
stinkubus
Emperor
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No one believes you because it's false. Deflation drives companies out of business and lowers asset prices. It increases industrial concentration and the power of cartels and monopolies. Economies of scale must be leveraged to combat the declining prices.
A TL;DR for the economic history of the United States from 1776 to 1945 would be "a series of deflationary depressions". Why is this so? Because the US ruling classes were ideologically wedded to the gold standard which capped the amount of money in circulation.
@warpus It's fine to be enamored with the technology but so far I've yet to see anyone champion any practical applications outside of these speculative gambling assets which can also be used to hide money from the tax man and facilitate the worst kinds of criminal activity.
stinkubus
Emperor
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I wanted to add on to this because I inadvertently left out the most important case: if the quantity in circulation can be manipulated by the creators then you've just turned them into a totally private and politically unaccountable central bank.
Why are all the libertarian tech bros so anxious to hand control of our money supply over to Chinese crypto farms and nerds in their mom's basements?
Some counterpoints:
- I am not denying that deflation can be part of the causal chain when bad things happen, but I see no reason to believe it is at the start of any causal chain. So is deflation bad, or does it co occur with bad things? An analogy would be fever, it commonly occurs when you are sick, and is an indication of you being sick, and it can cause problems, but if it did not happen we would die more easily from bacterial infection. Is fever bad? What about if we changed the "system" such that it caused us to "run hot" and lose weight, with no downside?
- If deflation is caused by people not having enough money to buy stuff, and being afraid that if they spend money on stuff today they may starve tomorrow that is bad, but surely it is the economic conditions that cause it that are bad not the deflation itself.
- If during great depression had been accompanied by a crop failure and a breakdown in the manufacturing supply chain, or by the government buying excess supply, such that prices did not drop with people ability to pay that would have been worse.
- If deflation was caused by an increase in the the production of food and manufactured goods (say replicators for all) then that would be a good thing, right?
- If money was denominated by working hours, rather than gold or nothing, then it would be obvious that deflation is good, right?
- It is frequently postulated that deflation increases the propensity for people to save, and reduces their propensity to buy consumer goods. This is presented as an inherently bad thing, but it seems like it is what we all should be doing more of to conserve the earth's resources.
- I am not arguing that we should adopt an inherently deflationary currency such as gold or bitcoin, but that if we are to move towards a low consumption economy where we spend less time in paid employment and in fossil fuel powered transport then we should expect deflation in any meaningful measure, and this should be seen as a good.
Buying drugs on the internet is the worst kind of criminal activity? Even if it is, it is still a practical application.
There are two types of deflation. Productivity lowering prices is good, unless it's labor. Too little money available is bad, unless you're rich.
