What happened to 12 million BTC?

[NoahA]

It can happen again for any reason including increasing max supply.

John already said very clearly that there was no network at the time so it was easy to alter the code before it got out and before other miners or nodes were running it. The only way to change the code now would be for tens of thousands of nodes to run the new code, which will be next to impossible.

RedDuke, honestly, what is it that you're trying to prove? I know you want BTC to fail spectacularly because for such a smart guy, you can't accept that you missed the boat on this one. Its painful, and for me too. And now of course buying at 46k isn't as much of an asymmetric bet as it once was. Going to 100k seems probable, but that is only a 2x, and going down to 0, or even 10k is certainly a possibility, and hence the risk it too great. So I know its a pretty shitty position to be in.

But the fact that you can't leave crypto alone means you deep down inside are an angry crypto bull. Honestly, a failure of USDT, which seems to be about the only angle you've got, might not even spell doom for BTC. I can see it just as easily rally since people will get out of the stablecoin and into anything else if bad news hits. And if 80 billion of value goes up in smoke in an instant, this doesn't mean anything happens to the 19 million bitcoins already out there. Sure, they might be repriced, but they will always be there. It might even accelerate the adoption of self custody, and who knows what happens to the price of BTC if everyone wants to move theirs off the exchange and into a hardware wallet.

I'm not saying rush out and buy bitcoin, but to call it a ponzi scheme at this point is a little bit too late in my opinion.

 

[johnarb]

could not care less and not defending anything. Once again John also confirmed that bug was exploited, code was changed and forked. It can happen again for any reason including increasing max supply.

That's not what I said, RedDuke and you do care, since you're a crypto hodler now

Source: Book "Digital Gold" (or Bitcoin Billionaires, I finished both books with no pause, so memories are overlapping). Also vague memories from r/Bitcoin threads

• Bug was discovered by an anonymous person who had mined a lot of bitcoins and secretly contacted Satoshi Nakamoto
• Game Theory incentives as predicted by the Whitepaper
• It would have allowed someone to exploit the bug and create millions or billions of bitcoins
• Satoshi worked on a fix and released an emergency version within a day without disclosing the existence of the bug
• The bug was never exploited
• There were less than 10 contributors to the Bitcoin software
• There were less than 50 Bitcoin nodes on the network and it was trivial to reject any node that did not or would not upgraded

Increasing the max supply is possible only if you fork the software in the same way Bitcoin Cash and other forks did in 2017

However, Bitcoin Core cannot be changed and I welcome your argument on how you would do it, but please provide a factual, actionable plan so as not to confuse others

• There are close to 1,000 developers/contributors on the open-source Bitcoin Core
• Old Versions are still functional on the network
• Any node with a software version that violates the 21M limit among many other parameters will be rejected by all the honest nodes
• There are hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin nodes and to re-iterate, some are running many versions that are much older than the latest release
• Bitcoiners are a passionate group of people and we will not upgrade our software to one that we do not believe in
• Food for thought: Why doesn't Bitcoin switch to POS like Ethereum is about to do? You know it would reward current Bitcoin hodlers since that's what POS does. We will never switch to a POS and will never upgrade to a version that does

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/releases

 

[RedDuke]

John already said very clearly that there was no network at the time so it was easy to alter the code before it got out and before other miners or nodes were running it. The only way to change the code now would be for tens of thousands of nodes to run the new code, which will be next to impossible.

RedDuke, honestly, what is it that you're trying to prove? I know you want BTC to fail spectacularly because for such a smart guy, you can't accept that you missed the boat on this one. Its painful, and for me too. And now of course buying at 46k isn't as much of an asymmetric bet as it once was. Going to 100k seems probable, but that is only a 2x, and going down to 0, or even 10k is certainly a possibility, and hence the risk it too great. So I know its a pretty shitty position to be in.

But the fact that you can't leave crypto alone means you deep down inside are an angry crypto bull. Honestly, a failure of USDT, which seems to be about the only angle you've got, might not even spell doom for BTC. I can see it just as easily rally since people will get out of the stablecoin and into anything else if bad news hits. And if 80 billion of value goes up in smoke in an instant, this doesn't mean anything happens to the 19 million bitcoins already out there. Sure, they might be repriced, but they will always be there. It might even accelerate the adoption of self custody, and who knows what happens to the price of BTC if everyone wants to move theirs off the exchange and into a hardware wallet.

I'm not saying rush out and buy bitcoin, but to call it a ponzi scheme at this point is a little bit too late in my opinion.

you are very wrong in my assessment. I want blockchain and crypto to succeed. I wan spot ETF and etc. but it should also happen on its own merit at open market with real price discovery, and not the shit show and fraud it has become.

 

[RedDuke]

That's not what I said, RedDuke and you do care, since you're a crypto hodler now

Source: Book "Digital Gold" (or Bitcoin Billionaires, I finished both books with no pause, so memories are overlapping). Also vague memories from r/Bitcoin threads

• Bug was discovered by an anonymous person who had mined a lot of bitcoins and secretly contacted Satoshi Nakamoto
• Game Theory incentives as predicted by the Whitepaper
• It would have allowed someone to exploit the bug and create millions or billions of bitcoins
• Satoshi worked on a fix and released an emergency version within a day without disclosing the existence of the bug
• The bug was never exploited
• There were less than 10 contributors to the Bitcoin software
• There were less than 50 Bitcoin nodes on the network and it was trivial to reject any node that did not or would not upgraded

Increasing the max supply is possible only if you fork the software in the same way Bitcoin Cash and other forks did in 2017

However, Bitcoin Core cannot be changed and I welcome your argument on how you would do it, but please provide a factual, actionable plan so as not to confuse others

• There are close to 1,000 developers/contributors on the open-source Bitcoin Core
• Old Versions are still functional on the network
• Any node with a software version that violates the 21M limit among many other parameters will be rejected by all the honest nodes
• There are hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin nodes and to re-iterate, some are running many versions that are much older than the latest release
• Bitcoiners are a passionate group of people and we will not upgrade our software to one that we do not believe in
• Food for thought: Why doesn't Bitcoin switch to POS like Ethereum is about to do? You know it would reward current Bitcoin hodlers since that's what POS does. We will never switch to a POS and will never upgrade to a version that does

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/releases

lol. I am a very small HODLer. John I did not say it was easy but the fact remains that it can be done. At any rate I am always happy to hear stories like yours where people make money.

 

[guest_trader_1]

Nothing wrong with taking some profits, it's called "risk management". The worst you can do is being some "Michael Saylor gambler copycat" -> all in with leverage + praying = to the moon OR to the homeless shelter.

I know, I was just teasing the troll. That guy is a piece of work, pay attention to his comments, pure fun.

 

[William James]

12 million bitcoins have never moved. They are the so-called lost bitcoins. In 2014, a research paper that was published estimated that there are a total of 2.78-3.79 million unspent bitcoins, using an upper bound of 1.29 million bitcoins lost. - Block explorer estimate

 

[Trader Curt]

12 million bitcoins have never moved. They are the so-called lost bitcoins. In 2014, a research paper that was published estimated that there are a total of 2.78-3.79 million unspent bitcoins, using an upper bound of 1.29 million bitcoins lost. - Block explorer estimate

Really dude?

You're first comment is something out of a news paper? You want to tell us who you are now? You can't just come in here and start posting like you've been here for 10 years

 

[GlobalMacro90]

you are very wrong in my assessment. I want blockchain and crypto to succeed. I wan spot ETF and etc. but it should also happen on its own merit at open market with real price discovery, and not the shit show and fraud it has become.

So I think we convinced you (even if you won't admit it) that nobody can hack and change bitcoin to 41MM coins like you originally said. I hope it's clear that the decentralized nature makes hacking largely a fruitless exercise.

I mean I guess you can say since it's tech in general so it's always theoretically possible, but that's a pretty lazy argument.

Now, why exactly is bitcoin a "the shit show and fraud it has become"??

Im thinking you say this bc of tether, but have you pulled on this string??

Listen I hate tether. I wish it didn't exist. I wish they were more transparent with what they do with the money. I wish this wasn't a topic. It's very clear that the US governments first order of biz with regard to crypto regulation is stable coin regulation. Good. This shouldn't ever happen again.

BUUUUUUT tether would not bring down bitcoin. Not even close.

A common stat is that X% (I forget the number) of BTC transactions are facilitated by tether, but that could easily be any other stablecoin. Tether is just the most popular stablecoin, especially in certain countries and platforms. There is no difference with this transaction USD-->Tether-->Bitcoin and this one USD-->USDC(or any other more reputable stable coin)--> BTC.

Continuing... let's assume a bad scenario for tether. Let's say they invested in some bad stuff, and now they hold 80 cents on the dollar for what essentially should be a money market fund. That is objectively bad. I don't think anybody would argue that is not bad.

But still, Tether has a market cap of 82BB. 20% of that (80 cents on the dollar) is ~16BB loss. BTC is worth almost 1T. So how exactly is a 16BB loss going to crash a 1T asset?

Im just trying to make you think through this assertion, instead of a lazy "BTC is at X price bc of fake Tether" argument. Or as the boomers say "tethers"

 

[RedDuke]

So I think we convinced you (even if you won't admit it) that nobody can hack and change bitcoin to 41MM coins like you originally said. I hope it's clear that the decentralized nature makes hacking largely a fruitless exercise.

I mean I guess you can say since it's tech in general so it's always theoretically possible, but that's a pretty lazy argument.

Now, why exactly is bitcoin a "the shit show and fraud it has become"??

Im thinking you say this bc of tether, but have you pulled on this string??

Listen I hate tether. I wish it didn't exist. I wish they were more transparent with what they do with the money. I wish this wasn't a topic. It's very clear that the US governments first order of biz with regard to crypto regulation is stable coin regulation. Good. This shouldn't ever happen again.

BUUUUUUT tether would not bring down bitcoin. Not even close.

A common stat is that X% (I forget the number) of BTC transactions are facilitated by tether, but that could easily be any other stablecoin. Tether is just the most popular stablecoin, especially in certain countries and platforms. There is no difference with this transaction USD-->Tether-->Bitcoin and this one USD-->USDC(or any other more reputable stable coin)--> BTC.

Continuing... let's assume a bad scenario for tether. Let's say they invested in some bad stuff, and now they hold 80 cents on the dollar for what essentially should be a money market fund. That is objectively bad. I don't think anybody would argue that is not bad.

But still, Tether has a market cap of 82BB. 20% of that (80 cents on the dollar) is ~16BB loss. BTC is worth almost 1T. So how exactly is a 16BB loss going to crash a 1T asset?

Im just trying to make you think through this assertion, instead of a lazy "BTC is at X price bc of fake Tether" argument. Or as the boomers say "tethers"

BTC was exploited, "hacked" once. Just because it did not happen again, does not mean it can not, read "fooled by randomness". But I am not talking about hacks, I am talking about mechanism that can increase supply, it exists however unlikely it will be used or not.

Once again, 21 million can be changed, it is not set in stone.

Many people say, USDT is only 80 billion and BTC is 1 trillion, so it won't matter. Where this logic falls apart, is Market Cap has nothing to do with price per say. Only a fraction of existing BTCs trades daily. And 70-80% of daily volume are stable coins (some are totally legit and audited, majority are not of course). Remove fake money, and prices will collapse, and BTC 1 trillion market cap will become 100 billion or less, and only a small portion of BTC will be used to establish it.

 

[johnarb]

What is gaslighting?

1. There was a bug in the earliest versions of Bitcoin
2. It was fixed and the bug has been gone
3. Bitcoin was never exploited
4. Bitcoin was never hacked
5. To change the rules on Bitcoin, you have to convince the developers that are scattered across the world and many are anonymous
6. To change the rules on Bitcoin, you have to convince millions of nodes scattered across the world to all upgrade to this new version
7. To change the rules on Bitcoin, you have to convince all the Bitcoin miners that are scattered across the world to upgrade to this new version
8. It's about as likely as turning off the internet for a day, is it possible, sure, you just have to convince Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 and so forth to turn off the backbone routers
9. Don't trust, but verify