The search index knows when the first time it saw that old link was. If it was before the reset, regard it as pointing to a different domain than the current one.
Google can take various actions to put pressure but it ultimately doesn't control how the entire world treats archived text.
A google rank at zero and lots of 2 hop routes to your site that google can either penalize for being an accurate historical record or not is better than a rank of zero and a domain that has never been in historical artifacts.
The historical artifacts exist independently of the search ranking. Actual bad guys can get a new domain to get a clean slate without taking the old one down. The reason they care about the cost of domains is their domains get a bad reputation immediately and they have to cycle through far more than one domain a year.
If they were going to consistently use the same domain for links while they churn through hundreds/thousands a year for Google, the extra cost for one extra renewal for the persistent domain would be entirely negligible. And on top of that would make it trivial for Reddit/Facebook/etc. to disable all the historical links because they all go to the same scam site.