Bitcoin experts split over plan to freeze Satoshi's 1.1 million bitcoin as quantum threat grows

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao's suggestion that the estimated 1.1 million tokens belonging to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto should be frozen to prevent them from being stolen should quantum computers break the blockchain's cryptography elicited conflicting views among some of the industry's best-known investors, developers and entrepreneurs.

Zhao, widely known by his initials CZ, floated the idea during a podcast last month with Galaxy Digital's Alex Thorn. His idea was to give Satoshi six to 12 months to move the bitcoin BTC$63,301.94, worth about $68 billion at bitcoins current price of roughly $62,000. If nothing happened, he said, the community could decide whether to freeze those addresses.

“If we don't do anything with it, then we're basically giving it to somebody who's going to hack it,” Zhao said.

Among the concerns is the possibility that someone with access to the tokens might dump them on the market, flooding supply and crashing the price. An alternative worry is the blockchain seizing control of an individual's property in a system that's designed to be permissionless and trustless.

Michael Terpin, founder and CEO of Transform Ventures and author of Bitcoin Supercycle, said freezing Satoshi's coins would cross a line Bitcoin has never crossed. Terpin is sometimes called 'the crypto godfather' for his involvement in the industry around 2013, when it was still young and somewhat misunderstood by the mainstream.

“While I appreciate the proactivity in CZ's proposal, it begins a slippery slope of creating permission in a permissionless system relative to personal property,” Terpin told CoinDesk.

“If indeed [Satoshi] is dead, as many Bitcoiners believe, then only a quantum hack unlocks the coins. While it would hurt the price substantially if the coins were dumped, it would be a one-time episode and post-quantum bitcoin would recover.”

Terpin also questioned whether Bitcoin's decentralized community could ever agree on such a change. “Considering it took years just to implement SegWit, I doubt a quick consensus could be formed here,” he said.

Jameson Lopp, co-founder and chief security officer at Casa, said CZ's comments miss the larger issue. “I don't really consider it a proposal so much as him musing upon the threat,” Lopp said in an email interview.

Freeze or not to freeze

Lopp, also a prominent cypherpunk and leading Bitcoin developer and advocate, said the debate is not about Satoshi's coins. It is about preparing Bitcoin for a future in which today's cryptography is no longer secure. “I think this is not a binary debate of ‘to freeze or not to freeze.’”