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One of the largest owners of Bitcoin, reportedly held over 1B dead at 41
- macksd 5y agoNow 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.
- msslx 5y agosocial recovery wallets [1] may be a solution to this problem. [1] https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html
- thegreatpeter 5y agoBut they’re not yet so 1B of Bitcoin just went bye bye
- DennisP 5y agoBitcoin has had multisig wallets for a long time: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature So it's not that hard to distribute several keys of the multisig to various heirs, who would have to agree on any transfers of funds. Another option is to keep each key in a different safe deposit box, with a will stating who gets access to the boxes.
- xkjkls 5y agoEven with that, who do you trust to actually do any real transfer of your bitcoin in a fully secure way? Certainly not your lawyer, legal offices carry so many security problems. With a total of $1 billion at stake, there are some very real risks of attack.
- DennisP 5y agoI'd educate the people who will get the money. They get access to the safe deposits, and issue the transactions. With a multisig, there's no single point of failure, and with hardware wallets there's little risk of getting hacked.
- xkjkls 5y agoMaybe I'm just not aware of all of the Opsec things that have been done to make Bitcoin transfer stupid simple, but I have instant goosebumps anytime someone claims they can do something in an operationally secure way, especially when 10 figures of currency are involved. At that point, you need to be training your protocol to be secure enough to survive the team from Ocean's 11 or the Russian government, not just script kiddies with too much time on their hands.
- NicoJuicy 5y agoThat's not a solution, that's another layer of abstraction to try to solve the problems of blockchain/decentralization for money with a new layer of issues. Eg. The hashed list of emails. It's going to be a hard reality check if some of your "friends" don't have access to their emails anymore or just aren't friends anymore after x years. The amount he suggests is 7, which is insanely much. Even people have issues with their parents with money alone. It's a nice fantasy though, but not workable in reality.
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoI 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.
- IMTDb 5y agoOr even dead at 41
- chovybizzass 5y agoI was infact this stupid. I lost 2.2M
- paulpauper 5y agobut that is how btc works. All BTC are tied to private keys.
- anonporridge 5y agoIf 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
- senectus1 5y agonot really sustainable though is it?
- Alex3917 5y agoCompletely sustainable, because coins are very highly sub-dividable.
- bpodgursky 5y agoThe 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).
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- meowkit 5y agoBitcoins 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.
- lostmsu 5y ago8 decimal places are already bordering insufficient: there are real world currencies whose unit costs less than 1 satoshi. See https://www.fiatmarketcap.com/ https://www.fiatmarketcap.com/
- memco 5y agoApple is introducing a mechanism to allow access to certain data after passing: https://www.cultofmac.com/744814/apple-digital-legacy/ 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.
- dheera 5y agoAs 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 devices switched on/off in a week * Zero outgoing phone calls in a week etc
- sneak 5y agoYou 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.
- dheera 5y agoI 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.
- sneak 5y agoIf you have enough cryptocurrency to worry about distributing upon your death, you have enough money to hire an attorney. (PS: they aren't $900/hour.)
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- vbezhenar 5y agoThat's one of the sources of a deflation. Bitcoin was purposely made as a deflationary currency, so it does not change anything.
- makotech222 5y agoI'm really glad we burned a billion pounds of coal for those bitcoin, which are now useless. Very cool system here.
- paulpauper 5y agoit effectively reduces the supply by .13%, which is tiny
- BrissyCoder 5y agoIf the same thing happened to total USD in circulation that would be $104000000000 going up in flames. Seems like a lot.
- booblik 5y agoDiamond hands?
- cozzyd 5y ago"Of Polish origin" With that (very Romanian) name, unlikely.
- uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5y agoso, people being fallible and all, are we going to end up in a situation where there is .05 bitcoin remaining in the world; and the government controls it, and backs its fiat with it, and we're right back where we started
- taway789 5y agoPopescu, 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.
- mistrial9 5y agodont ever be glad that a man has died - Chuck Conner in the Rifleman
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- gameswithgo 5y agoi will consider this advice but i need to hear more arguments
- draw_down 5y agoNo, you don’t.
- draw_down 5y agoCome on
- lmilcin 5y agoIt 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.
- pennaMan 5y agoStrange, 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.
- smrtinsert 5y agoBitcoin continues to impress me with its consistent level of sketch
- jamal-kumar 5y agoThe 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-ahogado-en-playa-hermosa-garabito_288345 https://www.teletica.com/sucesos/extranjero-de-41-anos-murio... "Los hechos se dieron a eso de las 8:30 a.m. cuando Popescu ingresó al mar a nadar en el sector de Tramonto, fue arrastrado por la corriente y murió en el lugar. Guardavidas de Playa Jacó le recuerdan a los turistas y bañistas que Paya Hermosa no es una zona para nadar. Además, recomiendan nunca ingresar al mar solos, sin guardavidas, personas o surfistas cerca a quienes pedir ayuda en caso de emergencia. " no es una zona para nadar... means it's not a swimming zone. Someone really should have told him harder. Completely avoidable tragedy.
- wmf 5y agoHe was a crypto billionaire, so either he was murdered by the G7 or he faked his own death.
- jamal-kumar 5y agoblistering take wow https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=muerto%20playa%20hermosa https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=muerto%20playa%20hermo... not like people dont just die at this beach all the time after not heeding warnings. i live like a few hours from here it's really sadly common. especially considering its literally called 'beautiful beach'
- paulpauper 5y agoNever 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.
- BrissyCoder 5y ago>.13% That actually seems like rather a lot to me in a single blow (if the keys are actually lost forever of course).
- dogsgobork 5y agoWith bitcoin you really can take it with you.
- s5300 5y agoWell. That certainly makes this post of his quite funny to read. Warning: NSFW/Nudity https://web.archive.org/web/20210420205839/http://trilema.com/2020/oh-happy-days/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210420205839/http://trilema.co... Straight from his typing fingers... "The ocean takes" Fitting end for a narcissistic sociopathic rapist who is the embodiment of a hat tipping supreme gentleman who thinks he's quite swell at making fun of supreme gentlemen while somehow not having the slightest shred of self awareness to realize he is infact one of said supreme gentlemen. Man, what a weirdo.
- pennaMan 5y agoWhat's really interesting is the cult following of highly educated women he had!
- jamal-kumar 5y agoidk about rapist, seems more like he was just really into bdsm and exhibitionism, but the nearest town from where he got taken by the ocean is pretty famous for prostitution. REALLY weird seeing some of these posts where he has girls in the full nude with things up orfices in like the area I live in. It's all I'm going to be able to see walking past that corner now
- s5300 5y agoHere is the easiest way to view his blog as the site seems to currently be hugged to death or otherwise down https://web.archive.org/web/20210424030258/http://trilema.com/archives-categories/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210424030258/http://trilema.co... If you're an incel, I wouldn't recommend going into it if you didn't already follow the guy. You may only become more radicalized, lol.