Comment by infthi

Hackers could have redistributed their coins to the existing wallets in the same ratio their balances were at the time of attack, keeping some coins (say, 1/21) to themselves as a reward. The outcome would've been: the hackers become owners of 1/21 of all bitcoins ever; Satoshi either keeps his 1/21 or is left with 1/184000 (depends on the implementation); everyone else sees their balance increase 20k times overnight. bitcoin/fiat exchange rate drops the same 20k times, so noone has lost any fiat value. Block rewards immediately become essentially worthless; mining becomes 100% fee powered.

Imo not great, not terrible.