This is the kind of reasoning used by those who say, "I'm not a thief for stealing his wallet; it's not my fault that the fool fell asleep with his wallet in his hand"
Obviously, it's unethical and immoral.
It's like breaking into a friend's house, seeing his seed, and stealing it, then saying he should have been more careful.
Now that it has no legal implications, that is something else.
Satoshi himself kindly disagrees. Whoever has the key, owns the funds. Now, my friend should just use private key 0x01 and transfer his life savings into that address, right? No one will ever touch it.
Last time I checked, it wasn't unethical or illegal to add two numbers together.
What's next, unethical to use quantum computers to break all cryptocurrencies? Seriously? You'd need to have a word with China about how non-ethical it is to break RSA first, since they just did that, before getting slammed by all big tech giants following along.
@kTimesG Having a valid signature may satisfy the Bitcoin protocol, but off-chain it’s still treated as theft. The English High Court froze ransomware BTC in AA v Persons Unknown (2019), holding that cryptoassets are property recoverable by injunction.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/AA-v-Persons-Unknown-summary-case-note-SB-amended-1.pdfAnd only last week the U.S. Justice Department filed a $225 million civil-forfeiture case against funds drained from victims wallets, classifying the siphoning as wire-fraud and money-laundering proceeds.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-files-civil-forfeiture-complaint-against-225m-funds-involved-cryptocurrencySatoshi’s “whoever has the key owns the coin” explains how the software recognises control, not a moral green light; he never said taking a live key is acceptable.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=283061.0The quantum-break headlines are lab demos of factoring toy 22-bit RSA keys, not a licence to empty real wallets.
https://therecord.media/chinese-researchers-claim-to-have-broken-rsa-with-a-quantum-computer-experts-arent-so-sureAnd the community still calls it theft when the “Blockchain Bandit” bot guesses weak keys and walks off with 45 000 ETH.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-bandit-moves-172m-eth-after-2-years-of-dormancySo on-chain math doesn’t override off-chain law or basic ethics when you knowingly move coins that aren’t yours.