High Court freezes €52m worth of Bitcoin
- Thread starter Brendan Burgess
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If the bitcoin addresses are known, then they can be monitored. If money moves at some stage, then it will be clear Collins has had the private keys all along. Lory Kehoe of ConsenSys Ireland & Blockchain Ireland suggested on Sean O'Rourke's show that the wallets are hardware wallets.
It's likely that hackers are working on cracking the security of hardware wallets already. However, they now have an even greater incentive. I'm sure if someone did, a substantial bounty could be offered by CAB for recovery of the keys.
It's likely that hackers are working on cracking the security of hardware wallets already. However, they now have an even greater incentive. I'm sure if someone did, a substantial bounty could be offered by CAB for recovery of the keys.
Out of interest there are only 40 Bitcoin addresses with "exactly 500 bitcoin" in them as described in the article, all have been accessed within the last 12 months. Maybe it's not exactly 500?
The IT article says the keys were printed on an A4 sheet of paper. Personally I think it's highly unlikely that only a single copy was made and it was kept in something so easily water damaged or stolen. As you say though, if they have the addresses of the Bitcoin then it will be public info if any of these are accessed.
NoRegretsCoyote
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Some reports put the estimate of Bitcoin lost forever as high as 5 million! So lost or forgotten keys are all too common.
It's a possibility....albeit a slim one. I guess if some of that starts to get spent, Collins has the perfect cover - they'd have to nail him down to spending the money somehow. That said, I think someone finding his fishing rods is as likely as this guy finding his hard drive!.No it won't. It could be evidence that someone else has found his fishing rods
Most estimates seem to suggest 3 million lost but I certainly hope it's the 5 million figure you mentioned. Designed in scarcity is a cornerstone of bitcoin. That scarcity limits it from being devalued by an endless supply. If there's 5 million less, all the better.
Yes, it would have been a mixture of easy come and the reality that it had little value back then. If you're mining bitcoin using a regular PC at a time when the unit price is a few cents, then you're unlikely to have a robust system in place for the storage of private keys. That wouldn't be the case today (that's not to say that more BTC won't be lost - it will - but to an ever decreasing extent).
You don't have to self-custody if you don't want if that's what you're getting at. This is an evolving technology - with evolving UX improvements. Work on user experience improvement has barely just begun as the technology itself and the basic infrastructure surrounding it has not as yet settled.Can't wait until we are all using Bitcoin....
Difficult to say with certainty alright. Chainalysis estimated 3.8 million in 2017, CCN reported 6 million last year, but these reports are always caveat heavy. Who knows, maybe Satoshi will reappear and reclaim his million