Ki Young Ju, founder of CryptoQuant, has proposed that a future Bitcoin (BTC) quantum upgrade may require freezing old addresses to protect against potential theft by quantum computers.
He also believes that addressing the risk would be challenging because the crypto community has historically struggled to agree on protocol changes.
Solution to Quantum Risk
In a social media post, Ju explained that anyone holding BTC in old address types faces the same risk. This is because the digital assets could either be frozen by design or stolen if quantum machines evolve enough to break BTC’s cryptography. He added that even securely stored private keys could become useless if owners fail to adopt protocol upgrades in time.
“In simple terms, coins that appear perfectly safe today could become spendable by an attacker tomorrow,” warned Ju.
In response to the threat, the CryptoQuant founder has suggested freezing old addresses, including the one containing Satoshi’s 1 million BTC, to prevent them from being stolen or compromised.
“Would you support freezing dormant coins, including Satoshi’s, to save BTC from quantum attacks?” he asked.
Bitcoin’s security relies on cryptography that is effectively unbreakable by classical computers. However, quantum computers change this assumption. Under certain conditions, a sufficiently powerful machine of this kind could get a private key from an exposed public key.
Once a public key is revealed on-chain, the risk is permanent. Ju estimates that roughly 6.89 million BTC are currently exposed to such attacks. Data shows that about 3.4 million BTC have been dormant for over a decade, including Satoshi’s stash, representing hundreds of billions of dollars in potential value. He explained that with so much value at risk, hackers could be very motivated if the technology becomes cheaper and easier to use.
Social Consensus Challenges
Even if freezing dormant BTC is technically possible, achieving community agreement is still a major challenge. This is because such solutions move quickly, while social consensus happens slowly.
The Bitcoin ecosystem has historically struggled with agreeing on protocol changes. This can be seen in the block size debate, which lasted more than three years and led to hard forks. Another example is the failed SegWit2x upgrade, demonstrating how difficult coming to an agreement can be.
Freezing coins, even to prevent quantum attacks, would likely face similar resistance because it conflicts with the OG cryptocurrency’s core philosophy of decentralization and user control.
Ju cautioned that the lack of full agreement could potentially lead to rival BTC forks as quantum technology progresses. According to him, the real question is not whether the threat will arrive in five or ten years, but whether the crypto community will be united on how to handle it before then.
Elsewhere, Bankless co-founder David Hoffman believes that in the event of a quantum attack, ETH would continue functioning normally even if BTC were to fail because it has been long prepared for these challenges.
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