suggestion Bitcoin "Treasure-Hunting" Mechanic: Is it possible?

[kyoukage01 3181]

There are now more than half of the total 21 million Bitcoins mined, and  we know that a vast amount of it is being hodled by whales.

 

But how do we know whether or not these whales are still active to crypto, have quit from crypto never to return, have lost their keys/wallets/etc., or have even gone deceased? Will those Bitcoins be considered as gone forever?

 

So I was thinking "Shouldn't there be a way to recover lost Bitcoins?" but couldn't think up of a way to do it. And then it hit me: if there is Bitcoin mining, maybe something like Bitcoin treasure-hunting will work.

 

Sounds ridiculous, but hear me out first. And if you know of something similar to this idea, please give me the link, at least I will know that I am not alone. 🙂

 

Most of us here should already be familiar with Bitcoin mining and its basic mechanics (if not, here's how it is done). Now in Bitcoin treasure-hunting, the same mechanics are used: but instead, a new block (I'll call it a 'treasure block' for the rest of this discussion) is created which is of course separate from the mining block. But for the treasure block to be created, an existing Bitcoin amount, that is confirmed that hasn't been moved for a very long time, is purged from circulation, and its contents are stored in a set amount to each treasure block that is created. And to unlock these treasure blocks, the same procedures that is done with mining is used.

 

If this is to be done, not only the lost Bitcoins can be recovered, the miners can also become treasure-hunters since both mechanics are similar, and even if the total amount of unmined Bitcoins are depleted somewhere in 2140, there is still some treasure-hunting the future generation will look forward to.

 

Of course I am not suggesting it should be done right away. With Bitcoins aged at only a little more than a decade, if this suggestion is to be done right away, of course there are a lot of people, whales especially, that is bound to get angry. With that in mind, I suggest that a minimum of 50 years from Bitcoin's creation should be sufficient enough. A very long time from now, and we might not even be still alive by then, but who knows what the future brings.

 

So, what do you think? Will something like this work? Or do you have a better idea of recovering lost Bitcoins for the longer term? Just post your comments below.

 

Edited April 28, 2020 by kyoukage01

[rekter 8129]

Nice idea, but this would mean serious altering to the bitcoin code and adding changes to the current immutable system just opens new ways to attack it. Less we change the code, more secure it is.

 

And then there's the point that i really don't see any reason to recover the lost bitcoins. Btc doesn't "run out" and if it becomes too expensive to move with 8 decimal place system, we can just increase the decimal places. And that wouldn't even create any inflation.

Edited April 28, 2020 by rekter

[rekter 8129]

11 minutes ago, Jump said:

Yes I think that it can be real and bounty hunting here in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is possible because I am in bitcoin talk also and there is a bounty hunting thread but I don't know what they do there and how they are earning money there.

I just said that i think this is not a viable possibility, so i don't know what are you talking about being "real", and this thread hasn't got anything to do with crypto bounty hunting so i am not sure what you are talking about.

 

Edit: Because your answer is off topic and doesn't make any sense in this context i am giving you spam reaction.

Edited April 28, 2020 by rekter

[Dark_Sky 8489]

45 minutes ago, BitcryptoHan said:

This is possible, the reason I am using bitcoin is because it is an asset, a treasure that grows over time. 

Same here, the price is not stable where in it can also grow more than what we expecting amount. 

It can grows up to twice or thrice of it's price now and we can't say the value of this coin in the near future. 

[SuperCrypto 7193]

11 hours ago, kyoukage01 said:

So, what do you think? Will something like this work? Or do you have a better idea of recovering lost Bitcoins for the longer term? Just post your comments below.

 

It is true that the blockchain system is decentralized and has strong protection, but unfortunately it is also a ruthless system, and if Bitcoin is lost it can never be retrieved, unlike what happens in some traditional systems.

[bachnhuc8273 231]

Bitcoin are either lost or not claimed apparently burn in cyber space but yes it could be nice to somehow reclaim these coins in some marketing I agree.

[kyoukage01 3181]

19 hours ago, rekter said:

Nice idea, but this would mean serious altering to the bitcoin code and adding changes to the current immutable system just opens new ways to attack it. Less we change the code, more secure it is.

Yes, I know that it will be hard, but if Nakamoto-san really can't do it to his Bitcoin, maybe some future successor of Bitcoin might have this feature included 🙂 .

 

19 hours ago, rekter said:

And then there's the point that i really don't see any reason to recover the lost bitcoins. Btc doesn't "run out" and if it becomes too expensive to move with 8 decimal place system, we can just increase the decimal places. And that wouldn't even create any inflation.

I do feel bad about some people who have lost huge amounts of Bitcoins due to carelessness though. While writing this topic, I also happened to read about a guy who mistakenly threw his hard drive with a cold wallet that has Bitcoins worth more than $100 million and is trying to search for it in his local dump site.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/3-crazy-things-people-are-doing-to-recover-lost-bitcoin.html

Spoiler

1. One person has been trying to search a toxic landfill

James Howell, an IT worker in the United Kingdom, began mining bitcoin on his personal laptop in 2009. The Telegraph reports that his computer broke in 2013 but he kept the hard drive in case bitcoin became valuable one day. It did.

While cleaning his home that year, he mistakenly put the drive into a waste bin at his local landfill site in Newport, South Wales, where it got buried.

Now, with bitcoin's value hovering just above $15,000, Howell's 7,500 lost bitcoins are worth more than $117 million (as of Thursday afternoon).

 

The U.K. resident wants to try searching the landfill, which reportedly has 350,000 tons of waste, but the Newport City Council won't allow it.

According to tech website Wired, the landfill is not open to the public and trespassing would be considered a criminal offense.

And even if the drive were recovered, it likely would no longer work after being exposed to heavy and potentially toxic waste for so long.

Awww, the poor guy. He would have been a Bitcoin whale by now.

 

And I'm sure there are plenty more cases like these where cold wallets are destroyed and are irretrievable. My suggestion in this topic is for those Bitcoins that are lost this way.

 

[George10 9932]

Creating something that can Hunt lost bitcoins can be a good thing to discover how to go about it because there are many lost coins out there but I think this will take time to be managed or it will never happen.

[rekter 8129]

4 hours ago, kyoukage01 said:

Yes, I know that it will be hard, but if Nakamoto-san really can't do it to his Bitcoin, maybe some future successor of Bitcoin might have this feature included 🙂 .

Yeah, i actually think that there already could been projects that have tried this sort of thing. I mean there has been a lot of altcoins.

4 hours ago, kyoukage01 said:

And I'm sure there are plenty more cases like these where cold wallets are destroyed and are irretrievable. My suggestion in this topic is for those Bitcoins that are lost this way.

Problem is that if there would be another way to recover the lost bitcoins without the private key, that would mean that there would be another way to hack the address then pure math. And that would mean either centralization or rendering the bitcoin security to next to nothing. We already have this centralized version with Fiat cash.

[BitcryptoHan 2557]

6 hours ago, George10 said:

Creating something that can Hunt lost bitcoins can be a good thing to discover how to go about it because there are many lost coins out there but I think this will take time to be managed or it will never happen.

It will be good but if only miners are able to just mine it again will be better, so that it will not be useless in circulation for ever because those in circulation now are like are not owned by anyone. 

[BTC Future 3946]

It is calculated by various researchers that between 1-4 million Bitcoins have been lost and are irretrievable. We don't actually know how much exactly they are that's the reason they are not removed from circulating supply. Satoshi had answered on this question on lost Bitcoins, saying that we can consider lost Bitcoins as an added value to the existing ones. It is like that exactly. The value usually increases as the total supply is reduced due to the reduction of a percentage of the supply.

About your suggestion, from what I know it is not possible to recover these lost Bitcoins right now. Perhaps in the future technology will advance further and there will be methods to do so.

Edited April 30, 2020 by BTC Future

[jacker 1095]

This idea is very good and many people definitely need to search for the lost bitcoin. but in fact there is no way to retrieve or recover the lost bitcoins. I don't know how to do it. My mother lost half of bitcoin and I wanted to find it but I was helpless. I have no hope of regaining it.

[Honny143 13612]

Some where I heard almost 4 million bitcoins stolen are stored in wallets and their owners loss to access this accounts, so this coins are not use in trading are any where, if any latest technology launch and restored this loss coins then its help to circulated this coins in crypto market.

[Kamila 291]

I think it's possible if the creators of bitcoin want to do it I think they will find a way , but I think it's unlikely that they will want to be hated by those who lost their bitcoins.

[Brand1 1336]

As for these things, it certainly happened, as many whales lost their wallets that contain large amounts of bitcoins, in addition to the death of many whales and the broadcasting of their currencies.
The idea I mentioned is very good, but it is impossible to happen because it is dangerous and will lead to major changes within the system of Bitcoin

[Saj555 2250]

The idea is quite amazing as it seems. But also the bitcoin is secured with some immune codes and system. The more we try to break the system or rules ,the more it will become a risk for everyone. So that's why i guess that it is not wise to make the idea possible. But the idea seemed quite amazing if you knew the creating procedures or codes. 

[Zaino34 0]

I think it is difficult to access those funds that no one can access, because there are many forgotten portfolios that contain good quantities of bitcoin and their owners forgot them and no one can access them to their owners, so I think these quantities will remain buried.

[kyoukage01 3181]

On 5/23/2020 at 9:26 PM, Saj555 said:

The idea is quite amazing as it seems. But also the bitcoin is secured with some immune codes and system. The more we try to break the system or rules ,the more it will become a risk for everyone. So that's why i guess that it is not wise to make the idea possible. But the idea seemed quite amazing if you knew the creating procedures or codes. 

Only the creators of the Bitcoin can modify the code to include it if they wish.

 

And inactive Bitcoins aged 50 years or more should be eligible to be 'hunted'. For some people who have misgivings about this crazy idea ruining bitcoin prices, I also already gave the stipulation that it should be similar to mining, in that the lost Bitcoins shouldn't be released all at once without some effort.

 

... ... ...

 

Since some of us probably won't be alive by the time Bitcoin has aged that far, we shouldn't be too serious about the implications of this suggestion of mine. But who knows, maybe some future genius will pick up on this.

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by kyoukage01

[Upright 2688]

That of whales not being active, I think is kind of a stock lie that of whales not active, as they just keep staking up their wallets. As practically we have even guys who stake up money on their Banks and restrict some circulation of money, as it's common to have many different coin whales

[Yomose 3704]

13 hours ago, Upright said:

That of whales not being active, I think is kind of a stock lie that of whales not active, as they just keep staking up their wallets. As practically we have even guys who stake up money on their Banks and restrict some circulation of money, as it's common to have many different coin whales

You are right about whales, they even do manipulate, I have been trying to learn trading recently and I have seen whales manipulations, especially when the marketcap of a coin is not that much. 

[kyoukage01 3181]

On 5/29/2020 at 3:46 AM, Upright said:

That of whales not being active, I think is kind of a stock lie that of whales not active, as they just keep staking up their wallets. As practically we have even guys who stake up money on their Banks and restrict some circulation of money, as it's common to have many different coin whales

That should be one of the reasons why I said that seriously considering the idea in this topic is a bit too soon (but shouldn't stop anyone from commenting here though). If a few decades or even a century has passed and a certain Bitcoin amount remains untouched, then one can be sure that that amount can be considered as lost or 'burned' coins.

 

But then there are also news of potential whales who literally threw their coins into the garbage dump (see the link on my previous comment). Those large amounts are really gone and are irretrievable.