Concerns over the security of Bitcoin’s earliest transaction formats have reignited debate about the fate of Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1 million BTC as advancements in quantum computing pose potential threats to the cryptocurrency.
Should the creator of Bitcoin (BTC) have their 1 million coins frozen to prevent exploitation? This question is on the minds of some in the crypto community as quantum computing development accelerates.
The concern arises due to the vulnerability of Bitcoin’s earliest transaction format, pay-to-public-key (P2PK), which exposes public keys on the blockchain.
Unlike modern pay-to-public-key-hash (P2PKH) outputs, the earlier P2PK transactions could potentially be exploited by quantum computers capable of deriving private keys from public keys, according to Emir Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs.
While some see freezing Satoshi’s coins as a necessary precaution, others argue it undermines BTC’s principles of decentralization and immutability. Either way, Satoshi’s 1 million BTC presents a high-value target for quantum attackers that could upturn the market.
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Are the coins vulnerable?
Satoshi’s BTC resides in the earliest P2PK outputs, a transaction format no longer commonly used because it exposes the owner’s public key.
Since the introduction of P2PKH, a format that hides the public key behind a hash until the coins are spent, quantum computing use for hacking has become significantly more complex than attacking an unprotected public key.
The vulnerability of P2PK outputs to quantum threats is not yet an issue. Still, it could be in the future as advancements are made in quantum computing and quantum attacks become a viable option for hackers.
Source: egs9000
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Freezing Satoshi’s 1 million BTC
The ability to freeze Satoshi’s holdings would involve altering BTC’s consensus rules to make specific unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) unspendable.
This process would require developers to draft a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP), clearly identify the vulnerable P2PK outputs with Satoshi, and see it approved to enforce the freeze.
If approved, the freeze function could be carried out via a soft fork, an element optional for nodes but driven by consensus, or through a hard fork, which would completely overhaul the underlying code of the BTC blockchain.
While this is technically possible, freezing the coins associated with Satoshi would require broad community agreement, which has historically been challenging for BTC.
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The implications of freezing Satoshi’s holdings
Freezing Satoshi’s holdings raises a critical question that challenges the fundamental ethos behind the creation of cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin was designed to be an immutable ledger where no entity can change the network’s history, but this fundamental would be contradicted if the holdings were frozen via a fork — opening the door to future interventions and a potential collapse of decentralization for the Bitcoin blockchain.
Proponents argue that Satoshi’s coins are a unique case and could be considered an exception due to their public key exposure and the implications it could have on the broader crypto market.
With quantum computing advancements — and the potential for a quantum attack on the 1 million BTC motherlode — could such an event prompt Satoshi to reveal themselves?
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