Re: Total Bitcoin lost to date?
As you say it - to date-.
Bitcoins are lost temporarily.
"first generation quantum computers" will get the "lost" P2PK coins.
"second generation quantum computers" will get the all the other "lost" coins.
The first quantum computers won't be able to mine Bitcoin because they will not have enough qubits to get the hash of the next block. For that task 2^128 basic quantum operations are needed. That is something for the "second generation quantum computers".
But to get the privatekey only 128^3 basic quantum operations are sufficient and will be within the range of "first generation quantum computers".
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Quantum_computing_and_BitcoinAnd for the "second generation quantum computers" people are already developing post SHA-hash signature systems. So we would then change to post SHA-hash signature systems before "second generation quantum computers" exist.
Post quantum we will have lots of forks. But the quantum upgraded original chain with all the mined coins will be the strongest. Anyone who has the privatekey of an old address can now move their coins and they will be quantum secure. Otherwise they are 'shalecoins' and have no owner and will be 'fracked'. These coins are the reward of their 'frackers'. If some think that the 'shalecoins' should be locked/destroyed, they can use the fork with excluded 'shalecoins'. They are already discussing such things: Fork and Destroy Satoshi's 1 million Bitcoin?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5131393.0No matter what, a decade is not such a long time. We should be discussing this stuff today.
Yes, squatter.
Quantum computers will surprise the Bitcoin community. The 'shalecoins' will be moved and will become active. Thereafter BTC owners will decide, which fork they want to use.
I have no idea and I just learned it from this thread. Those coins in Satoshi's wallet will then be activated which sooner there might not have forgotten coins after all. I guess we can all say Bitcoin will live on to be 21M in total. Nothings wasted and SAtoshi has really thought all of these will happen one day.