A senior Bitcoin developer said he would prefer to see the estimated 5.6 million bitcoins. he believes they will be lost frozen by the network rather than risk them falling into the hands of future quantum hackers.
Jameson Lopp told CoinDesk that while he doesn’t want to freeze anyone’s bitcoin, removing dormant tokens from potential circulation could be safer for the network.
“At the moment, I don’t believe any of this is necessary,” Lopp said in an interview, noting that he was thinking “contradictorily about a potential future threat.” Still, he would rather “have lost or dormant coins put out of reach of an attacker than have them fall into the hands of an entity that probably doesn’t care much about the ecosystem.”
His comments follow Tuesday’s release of BIP-361, a proposal from Lopp and others that plans to phase out Bitcoin’s current cryptographic signatures and, over time, invalidate transactions from quantum-vulnerable wallets, potentially freezing assets that fail to migrate. At current prices, the dormant tokens Lopp referenced are worth around $420 billion.
In a subsequent article on “I wrote it because I like the alternative even less,” he wrote, adding that in the face of an existential threat, “individual economic incentives trump philosophical principles.”
This isn’t the first time Lopp has expressed his feelings about quantum recovery, which he says amounts to rewarding technological supremacy rather than productive participation in the network. “Quantum miners don’t trade anything,” Lopp wrote. “They are vampires feeding on the system.”
Millions of bitcoins likely lost forever
About 28% of all bitcoins, or about 5.6 million tokens, haven’t moved in more than a decade, Lopp said, adding that he and other analysts consider it likely lost. If ever recovered through advances in quantum computing, this amount could introduce significant volatility and undermine trust in the original crypto network, Lopp added.
Although the proposal is still in its early stages and no timetable for adoption has been set, it has already sparked fierce debate within the community.
Lopp presented the idea as a way to encourage, even push, others to upgrade their wallets before a real threat arises.
“I don’t want to freeze anyone’s bitcoin,” he said. “We believe it will be necessary to encourage the ecosystem to modernize, because humans tend to procrastinate. »
Any changes would require consensus within the decentralized network. While no formal vote is taking place on the issue, similar upgrades in the past have required massive support from miners to activate.
Read more: To Freeze or Not to Freeze: Satoshi and Bitcoin’s $440 Billion Threatened by Quantum Computing
Massive risk of panic on the markets
The biggest risks include losing confidence in the largest cryptocurrency itself, Lopp said. Although a sudden spill of millions of bitcoins onto the market could trigger wild price swings, he said the biggest danger lies in perception.
“It doesn’t even require massive dumping of the market,” Lopp said. “If there is credible evidence that anyone has the ability to recover lost or vulnerable coins with a quantum computer, you should expect massive market panic immediately.”
In this scenario, he said, rational holders would likely leave the system until they are sure the blockchain has been secured against such threats.
The result is a growing divide within the community, which pits Bitcoin’s long-standing promise of immutable, censorship-resistant property against the need to defend the network against a potential future shock.
Starting from the principles of Bitcoin
Market analyst Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics, said the debate is more philosophical than technological.
“The path to quantum resistance is relatively clear,” he said. “The real question is how the Bitcoin community chooses to handle vulnerable coins along the way.”
According to him, freezing dormant Bitcoin accounts would mark a significant departure from Bitcoin’s fundamentals.
“On the one hand, freezing dormant or exposed coins could eliminate major tail risk and protect market confidence,” Greenspan said. “On the other hand, it sets a precedent for intervention that many believe is more dangerous than the threat itself. »
Greenspan explained that even without large-scale selling, visible quantum attacks on dormant wallets could trigger market panic.
Others argue that freezing dormant BTC accounts risks compromising Bitcoin’s fundamental safeguards.
“Ownership becomes conditional. Having keys no longer guarantees that you can spend,” said Leo Fan, founder of Cysic and former head of quantum resilience at Algorand. “This weakens Bitcoin’s ‘unstoppable money’ promise.”
And while he disagrees with freezing accounts, Fan noted that removing millions of bitcoins from circulation could tighten supply, potentially increasing its value.
