Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Merits 1 from 1 user
Re: Proof of reserves without giving up on privacy
by
takuma sato
on 31/05/2025, 21:41:14 UTC
⭐ Merited by vapourminer (1)
Sure, google provisions (maybe add the word bitcoin).

And taproot was specifically constructed so that solvency proofs could be more private and efficient.


I wouldn't actually put that much stock in professional auditors.  Having deal now for a few years with a skilled conman in court and his professional support, it's clearly possible to get "reputable" professionals to attach their name to all kinds of sketchy shit.  The conartist just needs to put up a maze and tire them out, and give them enough 'proof' that they'll have plausible deniability when it goes wrong.  It's only any better when there is a long history of failures such that the auditor knows a reasonable bare minimum that will be considered competent for them, and we're not there for cryptocurrency (and even if we were it's still a weak guarantee).

So for example, I saw Wright fool professionals by simply making a pile of backdated accounting records and pointing people to addresses in block explorers.  The professionals aren't going to do document forensics to figure out the docs were backdated.  They're not going to think carefully that an amount paid TO an address with your taxid in it doesn't mean you own that address, and so on.

The question you have to ask is if the auditors report is wrong will they got to prison? Will they suffer financial ruin?  The answer is no, heck they could even be *complicit* and it's very unlikely that they'll ever suffer serious consequences. And so while better than nothing you shouldn't stake *your* own ruin on them being right.  They will catch accidental screwups but they will miss massive fraud.


Wright even got a reputable big name audit/accounting firm BDO to back him up in Norway, -- and of course big name accounting firms have been part of basically every huge company fraud.

I have been looking for that but I only found technical papers, im not sure if there is a free or commercial grade, user ready thing where you can buy a service and use it for yourself, your company or corporation. I know Strategy is looking for this product, and they are testing different things. I was wondering what would be the best way to go for a company that holds 550k BTC which is no joke. As far trusting auditors, I know even big firms like KPGM have been in corrupt cases and so on, so yes, ideally Strategy should move to some cryptographic solution where people can go and freely check the funds are real, but there has to be way to do this without putting people in danger by revealing their public addresses, it's just a matter of finding out how.