Changpeng Zhao proposes freezing Satoshi's bitcoins: protection against quantum threat or a blow to decentralization?
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has made a resonant proposal that could fundamentally change the landscape of Bitcoin security. He suggests giving owners of old, long-dormant wallets, including presumably the wallets of Satoshi Nakamoto himself, 12 months to move their funds. If the coins are not transferred, they would be permanently frozen.
A Quantum Time Bomb
CZ's main motivation is the looming threat from quantum computing. He warns that inaction on this issue is deadly dangerous. Once quantum computers reach the necessary power, coins in old wallets using the vulnerable P2PK (Pay-To-Public-Key) format will become easy prey for attackers. Essentially, they will go to whoever cracks them first.
This concerns wallets from Bitcoin's early period that fully expose the public key. This makes them extremely vulnerable to quantum algorithms capable of deriving the private key. According to CZ's plan, the one-year window would give owners of these "sleeping" coins a chance to move them to secure, modern addresses.
Not the First to Raise the Issue
Notably, a similar idea was proposed back in 2024 by Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer. He also pointed out the vulnerability of the P2PK format and suggested the community consider freezing all coins on such addresses before the quantum threat becomes a reality. Sirer, however, noted that the window of opportunity for a quantum attack is quite narrow, somewhat complicating the task for an attacker.
CZ's idea goes even further, suggesting that under the new protocol, only about 20 million coins would remain, as the rest would be locked up. This implies a radical reduction in Bitcoin's circulating supply.
Analyst's opinion. Raising the question of quantum security itself is absolutely correct and timely. However, CZ's proposal for forced freezing of inactive coins sets a dangerous precedent. It undermines one of Bitcoin's fundamental principles — immutability and non-confiscability. Who and how will determine "inactivity"? Could this become a tool for censorship and manipulation? A better path forward seems not to be freezing, but developing and implementing a mechanism for a soft network upgrade that allows owners of old wallets to voluntarily and safely migrate to new standards, for example, through temporary forks or "burn-and-mint" mechanisms. Freezing, on the other hand, is a solution that could damage Bitcoin's reputation more than the quantum threat itself.