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Approximately 6.89 million bitcoins are currently vulnerable to quantum attacks, according to Ki Young Ju, the founder of the analytics platform CryptoQuant. This includes around 1 million BTC associated with the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Ki Young Ju believes that a significant portion of these vulnerable bitcoins is stored in precarious conditions. Of the total, 1.91 million BTC are held in old P2PK format addresses, where public keys are visible on the blockchain, while an additional 4.98 million BTC may have exposed their public keys through previous transactions, stated the CryptoQuant founder.
“Coins that appear to be completely secure today could be stolen by an attacker tomorrow,” Ju warned.
The analyst expresses particular concern regarding the amount of “dormant bitcoins.” Approximately 3.4 million coins, including those linked to Nakamoto’s wallet, have not been moved for over a decade. At current prices, this represents hundreds of billions of dollars stored in addresses that could potentially be compromised by quantum computers in the future, the businessman explained.
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He considers two scenarios plausible: either Bitcoin will update its protocol and freeze the vulnerable coins, or quantum attackers will steal the funds.
The primary challenge lies in obtaining the Bitcoin community’s consensus on freezing the coins, as this directly contradicts one of the fundamental principles of the first cryptocurrency, immutability, the analyst noted. Ju recalled that, for instance, the discussion regarding increasing the block size lasted over three years and ultimately resulted in hard forks. According to Ki Young Ju, the proposal to freeze “dormant coins” will face even more significant opposition. However, the analyst insists that the likely outcome for such coins is that they will become inaccessible to their current owners.
Previously, Christopher Bendiksen, head of Bitcoin research at CoinShares, stated that 10,200 BTC on outdated addresses are under real threat from quantum computers.
