Overview
- An estimate circulated by CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju puts roughly 6.98 million BTC at potential risk from a sufficiently advanced quantum attack, including about 1 million BTC attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, worth roughly $440 billion at current prices.
- The exposure centers on early pay-to-public-key outputs and address reuse that left public keys permanently visible on-chain, whereas modern address types typically keep keys hidden until coins are spent.
- Opponents of intervention argue Bitcoin’s neutrality must hold, noting the protocol cannot reliably distinguish lost coins from dormant ones and warning that freezing selected outputs would set a precedent.
- Proponents of active defense, including Jameson Lopp, float a defensive soft fork that would render vulnerable outputs unspendable unless migrated to post-quantum addresses, while Paolo Ardoino contends reintroduced coins would be absorbed by the market over time.
- Experts disagree on timelines, with some citing research that could shorten milestones for breaking RSA to two to three years if validated, as others urge calm and frame the issue as a solvable cryptographic upgrade with no immediate protocol change agreed.