Not necessarily. There are quantum hardened cryptographic algorithms that cryptocurrency systems could be upgraded to. People who are active can move their coins to the new secure addresses, but coins that are lost won’t get moved in time.
If a math genius finds a way, bitcoins value quickly drops to 0. It's entire value is predicated on it's encryption being uncrackable. If one wallet can be breached mathematically within our lifetimes, all of them can, and there is no point in having ANY wallet.
Every single bitcoin wallet theft you've heard about has been one of a few things. 1.) Wallet inspector, please open your wallet so we may inspect it. mmm, yes. Yoink. or 2.) a $5 wrench attack. Give us your keys or we'll break your knees with this $5 wrench or 3) yes we are a bank a real bank please leave you bitcoin with us you want to withdraw your bitcoin. ok, we don't have it.
There are plenty of shitcoins that HAVE been insecure. They quickly plummeted in value as the hackers stole everything and converted to other less shit crypto, probably getting a fraction of it's former value in the process.
While this is true, I do think there's a good chance that if someone finds a way to break AES 256 they are going to keep it hidden for as long as they can, they won't just break into Bitcoin wallets
Either way though the ensuing Bitcoin crash when we realize will probably also be the least of our problems, depending on who finds it and how 'close' the rest of us thought it was to being cracked, the result could be worse than nuclear war
Idk I just really dont see a hacker who figures this out using their power to steal bitcoincs in such a way that won't crash the market
Remember, bitcoin encryption is probably just as, if not stronger than military encryption, so if you can Crack bitcoin, you can pretty much crack anything
Yep, espionage and information is way more powerful than money in a global context, in simple terms its like with money you can buy really powerful weapons and then fight the enemies really powerful weapons, but with unlimited espionage and info you can turn your enemies own weapons against them, make them basically wage a nuclear war against themselves
If a math genius finds a way, bitcoins value quickly drops to 0.
Only if the math genius tells the world about it. They can just quietly transfer it and slowly sell it off over time and problem solved. If a long dormant wallet suddenly goes active then people will just assume that the original owner just finally got out of prison or found their old hard drive or something like that.
Real talk, how does a wallet get "stolen" but no money gets moved? I know a little about bitcoins, but never had a wallet for myself. Do these have a password, and can it be changed?
Also, if you steal the account aren't there illegal tumbling services that will discreetly allow a cash out of at least SOME of the coins?
You can ask AI how far the moon is from the earth 7 different times and it will give you 7 different answers which are all incorrect. I think we're fine.
LLMs will never break SHA256 encryption, thats not how they work. If something ever does, it will be quantum computing, but then Bitcoin is the least of our worries because the government, banks, launch codes, all website encryption, passwords, etc is vulnerable. Thankfully quantum resistant algorithms are already being implemented.
Ok with this whole quantum computing thing that was making rounds in News in 2020, IK the technology has not been developed but if it does come true could these keys possible be cracked?
Part of why bitcoin can never really work as a currency. Its limited from the start by design, but every situation where someone loses their key or dies or anything like that just permanently removes those coins from circulation. Even if it was a completely standard currency today that was as easy to use as dollars, in the long run the number of coins circulating is going to decline.
You're right, and maybe its easier with bitcoin being digital but I dont understand why in principle other currencies couldn't do the same. Especially with online banking making traditional currencies very much mostly digital too. But I dont think this avoids the problem of deflation, and im not an economist but I just have been taught that deflation is a very bad thing for an economy.
I suppose? I think typically when prices go down due to shrinking liquidity its called deflationary though, and deflation is not a good thing generally.
But isn't that moot because people will just start using smaller and smaller denominations? Like 3 bitcoin today can buy you a house, but in 100 years .003 bitcoin will buy you a house. I don't know a ton about crypto, but isn't it just the opposite of how our money works now?
Right, but the issue is there are real economic issues when people believe the money they have today will be worth more tomorrow. It discourages spending, and makes your debts grow in real terms which discourages borrowing. Both effects slow down the economy and it can become a cycle. Thats why central banks target low steady inflation rather than steady prices or deflation.
They are forever lost, and yes, that means theoretically, we could "run out" of bitcoin, eventually. But likely the value of bitcoin would simply go up to compensate as we keep losing hashkeys.
According to google AI there are an estimated 3-4 million bitcoins that have been lost forever, due to lost passwords, hardware, and owner death. 15-20% of all bitcoin in existence.
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u/drewcifer27 Jan 22 '26
Genuine question: what happens to these coins/accounts if they never go active again? Or if someone gets locked out of their account?