I've been checking out various threads over the years about possible attacks on Bitcoin. Some seem more realistic than others, and some are just wild. Personally, I’m not sold on a few of the threats, but some definitely catch my interest. The thing is, info is all over the place, scattered across different topics. I've seen a bunch of threads dedicated just to quantum computers, so it gets messy. Just to clarify, even if I start with this hot topic, this isn't just another thread about quantum computers!! Keep that in mind.
I’m not ranking these threats by how likely they are to happen. Honestly, figuring out the odds of these situations is pretty tricky, and comparing them is like trying to read tea leaves. So I won’t throw out any detailed likelihood percentages. I’ll share my thoughts on the threat landscape, which includes my personal takes on how likely they seem based on where we are today and some research I’ve done. For instance, I think the chance of a major regulatory crackdown in the US, like an outright ban, is pretty low, and I’ll explain why below.
Group 1: Tech Threats
Bitcoin is all about tech, and its security hinges on some clever cryptographic techniques. So yeah, there’s always a risk from tech threats, and these can vary in how serious they are and what kind of impact they might have. The range goes from minor DOS attacks on individual nodes to a total breakdown of consensus or rule.
1.1 Quantum Computers
First up, let’s dive into quantum computers for a couple of reasons. One being, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them.
It's "mining pools", letter "p" is too far away from "f" in keyboard for a typo, but fools is also very accepted lol.
Those technological problem (quantum computers, depreciated crypto tech, hash generation) are not an issue in the future, Bitcoin is continuing development, it adapts the most safe and secured way cryptographically. If Bitcoin is in danger for its technology used, banks are not excepted to that.
The only real threat I see ahead is government mandated regulation. On one hand, it could undermine Bitcoin's core principle of decentralization. On the other, it might also make Bitcoin more accessible to the broader public. It's truly a double-edged sword.
Better thread that I initially thought, I hope it's not ChatGPT'ed I comment only on those I consider somewhat relevant:
- Node centralization: This could be indeed a factor if some current tendencies, for example the UTXO set bloat, continue. There are however mitigation strategies for this, like Utreexo. Of course, it would be a much higher risk if the developers eventually decide to increase the block capacity drastically. I think currently that is however far away. The sidechain model, much more cost efficient, is still on the table. However, until this becomes really critical the centralization grade has to be 99%+, so the risk this happens is quite low.
- Development centralization: There is a general risk that miners, developers and a big part of the users (above all, the wealthy ones) collude if the Bitcoin decentralization/censorship resistance ethos vanishes. This could be the case if the percentage of users who valuate censorship resistance decreases, for example due to an increase of speculative users who don't bother about censorship resistance at all (e.g. ETF investors). State agencies could take advantage of this and infiltrate the development team, reducing privacy gradually. It's not something I expect soon, but something that could happen if the cypherpunks in the Bitcoin Core team give up after so much hate they get for tiny changes. This is also what you address in User Apathy a bit, and I agree this could form a dangerous mix. But not now.
- Illegal content on the blockchain: There are technical solutions on the table allowing nodes to reduce that risk. Pruning is already possible today, but for archival nodes there may be more advanced, zero knowledge based techniques available.
- Fee market collapse. This is indeed a potential problem. I think thus one should not rule out changes in the mining reward scheme, above all if there are possibilities to create at least a minimal tail emission without affecting the 21 million coins limit.
- Altcoin competition (basically Group 5). I think this threat was much higher around 2015, but now has vanished -- even if Ethereum really "flips" Bitcoin (very unlikely) it is not a direct competitor because its economic model and characteristics are drastically different. It could eventually increase again if Bitcoin is facing a hard fork, for example for quantum resistance. In this case, other protocols have again a small chance to try to catch up, but it will be very difficult.
BTW I consider the quantum threat very low even for ECDSA, because there is a mitigation strategy which does not require action until the threat really materializes: it is possible to block transactions if they don't come from users who include a proof that they know their private key before they transact. Yes, that doesn't help for Satoshi's coins, but even if they are stolen, it will be simply a redistribution.
lol indeed, but is a nice mistake which I have now corrected thanks to your post. I would not consider it a typo but more a slip of the hand, if you left hand is hovering at WASD then it is very possible to make such errors.
I don't think it is that simple for the technological stuff. In case of quantum computers you must know that upgrading a bank is much easier for something like this. Just because there are other targets that does not mean they won't attack us! There are many parties who would love to destroy Bitcoin. To make things worse I've seen some reports of the alternative signature algorithms and they are not good. Some are huge! Like we would lose so much transaction throughput. Without a block size increase we would be doomed with such large signatures.
Thanks!! It took a while to put it together, if you have any other ideas for inclusion I'll take them. Of course I use ChatGPT like I use a search engine but mostly to get some inspiration for ideas like when I can't get a good name for a group. But one must be very very careful because it often gives terrible information. I have one example from this thread. It quickly rushed to state that the likelihood of a complete regulatory ban in the USA is very likely.
Ridiculous hallucination! With Blackrock and other major financial players on board the risk is as close to 0% as it gets. They control both parties the public positions of democrats are not relevant.
Yeah that is why I think these things are more likely to be used for targeted attacks on specific entities. This is also why we must always insist that people run nodes, the more there are and better distributed the lower the risk. It is one of those threats that can be mitigated the cheapest I think. I don't know about Ultreexo or if that is coming.
Yes. I didn't sort the threats really between current and future and in this case I also think this is more a long-term trend. Even with all the ordinals and mania we had in the last bull run, I think there are many users around with strong cypherpunk ethos. I know many users that radically refuse anything else other than Bitcoin, they even actively avoid making potential USD profit in altcoins. They just live the huge difference between Bitcoin and an altcoin. As long as many people like this are around we are good, but we must educate the coming generation on these matters. I think modernity is setting up most younger people to be apathetic monsters of consumption.
Here I am a bit more concerned because of lawmakers, they are tyranical and crazy. You've seen already attempts like in EU to scan all media locally on devices for CSAM and other crazy proposals. We don't know what they will do if they fully set their sights on this topic in regards to Bitcoin.
For me the hard supply limit is a hill I would die on. If you look at the top 100 coins there are very few that have this, most are inflationary sell outs even those that includes burns to balance the new inflation. I am afraid of the potential solutions that will be proposed or pushed by various groups on this. I would like to know what Core developers think about this issue.
Pretty fair view. I think it is just important to remember that Bitcoin does not exist in a bubble and that we shouldn't dismiss potential use cases or users will find solutions somewhere else.
I am not sure about quantum computers, I have many questions and doubts there. I think first it will be a big difference if someone is able to compromise 1 address slowly versus someone almost instantly compromising hundreds, thousands or all of the addresses. So there is a huge difference between these two scenarios, slow distribution or someone being able to dump 1M of satoshi's coins. Also I don't get from a legal point of view. We exclude hackers and bad actors like North Korea. Let's say Microsoft developers the first working quantum computer that can do this and nobody else has one. Are they legally allowed to steal those coins? How could that be legal?
Also how would that thing with the proof work? You have more information?
Thats a very thoughtful breakdown, thanks for taking the time to put it together.
I agree with you that node centralization, while a long-term concern, is not an immediate threat as long as mitigation strategies like Utreexo continue to develop. Development centralization is the one I personally watch most closely not because its happening right now, but because user apathy and the shift toward speculative investors could make it easier for powerful players to push through changes in the future. paygonline
The illegal content issue is interesting too pruning and ZK solutions definitely help, but it seems like a constant balancing act between practicality for node operators and maintaining the integrity of the chain.
On the fee market, I also think its wise not to rule out a tail emission or some other change if it ever gets to a critical stage. Hopefully, it wont be needed, but its good to at least keep that conversation open.
Altcoin competition feels a lot less threatening today than it did years ago, though like you said, a hard fork for something like quantum resistance could change that dynamic. I also share your view that quantum is still a low-priority threat at this point, since mitigation strategies exist and can be applied when/if it ever becomes real.
Overall, I think most of these risks are worth keeping on the radar but not panicking about in the short term.
Maybe if anyone of us ever had a clue about possible threats to bitcoin network, maybe we may not have gone this far in using it, once the protocols upon which bitcoin network was built on blockchain, things will always remain the same as always, because no codes can break in them except been in consensus.
I must confess this content from OP let me remember reading newspaper, you've done much to make the write ups and they are quite interesting to read.
If Satoshi is alive and quantum computers threaten to cause major damage to Bitcoin, then Satoshi Nakamoto will definitely become active and protect Bitcoin.
Again, the way large companies and firms (MSTR, METAPLANET, Strive, Capital B etc) are increasing their holdings in Bitcoin is also a kind of bad sign for Bitcoin.
However, the way Satoshi created Bitcoin, supercomputers and quantum computers cannot do any harm, and especially since Bitcoin is millions of times more powerful than supercomputers, if quantum computers really become a threat to Bitcoin, then Satoshi himself will certainly not be active.
The techniques I referred to allow to store the blockchain without storing all data. In theory you can craft something like this already today. If you spot a public key which is not really a key, but an image, you in theory could delete it as long as you have the merkle tree of the transaction.
Zero-knowledge techniques like ZeroSync allow an "intermediate" kind of node which is in-between a SPV node and a full node, it has almost the capacities of a full node. Where it becomes complicated is if you want to "support" the network hosting the whole blockchain. But the mini-blockchain scheme shows that it may not even be necessary to have completely full nodes at all. Maybe at the end we will have ZeroSync-style nodes and all NFTs and spam will be possible to be erased without losing anything.
There are some Core developers supporting the idea, but the majority is against it, as far as I know.
It becomes less scary if you know that the daily trading volume has already been close to a million in some of the "dips" in recent years (in 2024 there was a day where 900,000 BTC were sold). Once the coins are redistributed, they are no longer in limbo. Even without quantum computers, Satoshi could still sell them, or hackers steal the coin with conventional means, even if it seems rather unlikely now.
Of course stealing Satoshi's coins would not be legal. I think that's not even a question, as long as he doesn't leave some message somewhere signed with all of his keys.
It was proposed by Lightning inventor Tadge Dryja. I've described it here. There are ways an owner of a private key can prove that he has the key before transaction. A simple example is posting a TXID of a transaction to the blockchain without posting the transaction, and then post the transaction some blocks later. A quantum hacker can't do that if he doesn't know the public key to derive the private key from via Shor's algorithm.
It is similar situation with big companies buying much of Bitcoin. This makes Bitcoin more accepted it also means few groups might have too much power which goes against Bitcoin original goal of being decentralized. As for its security Bitcoin is very secure right now but future with powerful quantum computers is real threat. Good thing is that Bitcoin community is already working on ways to protect it from this technology. And regarding Satoshi Nakamoto come back to protect his/her Bitcoin so this can not be possible if he/she has died because mostly rumours are saying that he/she has died.
You are thoughtful about these points, and all the points are vital, even though some are more vital than others. My conclusion is that many of these threats or supposed threats are not just happening, some have started years back, and Bitcoin has been standing unaffected, and it will continue to do that. In this world we are in, there's nothing perfect (pros and cons), and there is nothing without an antagonist. It is about Bitcoin resilience and the commitment of the developers, protectors and adopters that will determine a lot. The government, technical, social/religious etc. will try, but I know that Bitcoin will alwasy survive.
Some are only on paper, some are already in motion, but overall, no blocker would stop BTC from moving forward, too think that way.
BTC is the only coin to take so much and to go forward no matter the case.
Is there a factual case where companies that own a lot of coins influence how miners prioritize transactions or how updates get pushed? I can't recall any big controversy other than the concentration of supply as of now. I believe miners' concentration on some countries also happened way before Strategy or other companies bought tons of Bitcoin, too. It will be interesting to see how the community will handle that if such things happen. If those players are here for the profit, I find it hard to believe they'll use such a destructive strategy after pouring millions to buy BTC.
I too didn't hear much about it: the fees dictate that, not how many coins you own.
And I too don't think they will bite the hand that feeds them, unless they are sure they will be in a good position to do so.
Would that really be so good? I mean we would radically be changing from a chain with complete history to one that only has partial history and traceability even if all UTXOs are verified. I have seen some of this stuff in the altcoin world and I don't like it. Most nodes there don't have the full history and the archival nodes are insane servers at AWS or something. They call this decentralized and scalable lol.
That is good, it is important that it stays that way.
Once it is done it is done that is an optimistic view on it. I like it but one must remember that this will not come without a price to be paid even if it is not permanent. The damage will happen.
I wonder if burning them would be alright or would that still be illegal. If it is illegal for any seemingly good entity to do anything with them, then they will definitely fall into the hands of some bad guys.
Very interesting and it doesn't even seem so complicated! I expected something very difficult. I'll read into it, thank you.
You didn't even read anything lol.
Unaffected? What a joke. Many of these things have negatively impacted Bitcoin already. Your last sentence is also a lie, you absolutely can not know that Bitcoin will survive. It is not something that is knowable.
I can't believe the things I am reading. Companies and miners together colluded in many attempts during the segwit and fork drama. They tried to push their will on the network several times. Also in recent years there have been cases of certain miners censoring some transactions. Why would there not be? If the USA government comes at your door you do as you are told. The world we live in is not a superhero movie.
If all UTXOs can be verified this way, without gaps e.g. due to unconventional scripts and even in the case of a large reorg, and a minimal history (e.g. all block headers and perhaps also parts of the merkle trees) are still saved, then I see no problem with that scenario. It would align with the idea that Bitcoin is a strictly financial tool and not a "data storage".
The mini blockchain scheme is a bit austere though. I think something in between between mini-blockchain and the current "storing everything" model would be ideal.
This is indeed an interesting question.
It could be tried to block P2PK/P2MS transactions like Satoshi's mining txes until a recovery mechanism is found. But there is probably no possible recovery mechanism like the one I mentioned for these coins, the problem is that a quantum hacker can always compute the private key of a P2PK transaction, and so he can provide the proof (like the TXID in Tadge Dryja's simplest model). Another idea was to require a proof about a HD key seed but that of course doesn't help here too.
Only way I can imagine now would be to discover a transaction to one of Satoshi's addresses with is P2PKH, not P2PK, and to a not reused address. Of course there must be evidence that that this address belongs to Satoshi (and not e.g. Craig Wright lol). Then they could establish a "lex Satoshi" rule, where all transactions have to be co-signed with Satoshi's P2PKH address too.
There is also another interesting question: what happens if a hacker steals Satoshi's coins but Satoshi does not initiate a demand nor claims the coins?
Of course the Bitcoin community could demand the hacker, and exchanges and service providers could try to stop the thief with the help of chain analysis like they do now when an exchange is hacked. But then? Who gets the coins back? I guess this could be a similar case than somebody who dies in absolute solitude without any heir. Would then some government be able to claim the coins (e.g. the one which confiscated the stolen coins, e.g. because they were detected on an exchange of that country)? Or could the quantum hacker indeed say there is "no owner", as nobody claimed them?
It does work in the sense that it verifies the outputs, but it loses the traceability of coins for better or worse. I don't also know how regulators would like this. In topics like tainted coins and stuff like that, would it not be harder to trace if history was not available? It will be interesting to see how this develops.
This is one of the questions that makes this situation difficult. Satoshi's pile of coins is huge and they can't be verified using the method that you have provided, or well any method (excluding what you wrote there and similar indirect things) if quantum computers can get those keys. Since I expect the largest corporations to be the first to have workable quantum computers, I am wondering if it would be a good solution for one of them to claim and burn them or keep them. Although I don't get what would happen if nobody ever makes a valid claim to them. I think we are in unprecedented legal territory here but I think a big corporation burning them is one of the better scenarios here.
It would avoid those proposals that want us to introduce freezing in Bitcoin which is horrible, it would avoid the dumping by bad actors and many other issues that we might have relating to this. The question is of course how do you get a large corporation on board and whether this is legal as we've discussed. As far as I am aware no large Bitcoin company is doing any serious work on quantum computers.
You are the one that the joke should be directed at if you think Bitcoin is actually affected by all the factors and conditions that are meted out towards it. For starters, nothing is perfect, and challenges are inevitable, but is Bitcoin still thriving well despite all of these? Oh yes, I can beat my chest on that, and being in the mainstream and the price are very good points to look at.
Bitcoin is progressive, which is the ultimate here, regardless of the present and future challenges, it is holding on well. More challenges will still present themselves in the future, and I believe Bitcoin will overcome because it wasn't built under deceit, it was well structured. The foundation and modality matter, and I don't care if you see it this way!
You wrote a whole pile of nothingness. It is clear that you have very little or no understanding of Bitcoin at all. Move on from this thread you are not welcome here. If something is too difficult for you like this thread it is better to ignore it like most poster's do instead of writing this meaningless post.
Bitcoin has been negatively impacted by many of these factors already. Nobody can properly estimate the total negative effect that they have had on it.
I searched for a bit, and it appears that this happened before I was aware of Bitcoin. Interesting story to know. That being said, the nature of the companies in that scenario seems quite different from Strategy or other companies that bought tons of Bitcoin and publish their investment sheet. At least that's the impression I got from an article that I've read on this issue. If there's another controversial fork coming, do you think companies like the Japanese's Metaplanet will actively push miners to vote for one thing over another publicly, instead of waiting and buying more coins to anticipate a possible hard fork?