Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp says it’s better to freeze 5.6 million BTC than let hackers have them
Lopp says dormant coins could pose systemic risk if quantum computing gives attackers the ability to grab them, intensifying the growing “freeze or not freeze” debate.
What to know:
- A proposal from core bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp would gradually invalidate transactions from quantum-vulnerable wallets, potentially freezing an estimated 5.6 million long-dormant tokens worth about $420 billion.
- Lopp frames the plan as a contingency to protect the network from quantum attacks and to push users to upgrade their wallets, even though he says he dislikes the idea and hopes it is never needed.
- Critics argue that a freeze would undermine Bitcoin’s core promise of immutable, unconditional ownership, setting an interventionist precedent that some see as more dangerous than the quantum threat itself.
“At the moment, I don’t believe any of this is necessary,” Lopp said in an interview, emphasizing that he is thinking “adversarially about a potential future threat.” Still, he would “rather for lost or dormant coins to be taken out of reach from an attacker rather than have them flow into the hands of an entity that likely doesn’t care much about the ecosystem.”
His comments follow the Tuesday release of BIP-361, a proposal from Lopp and others that explores phasing out bitcoin’s current cryptographic signatures and, over time, invalidating transactions from quantum-vulnerable wallets, potentially freezing assets that fail to migrate. At current prices, the dormant tokens Lopp referenced are worth roughly $420 billion.
In a subsequent post on X, Lopp said he “doesn’t like” the proposal and hopes it never needs to be adopted, describing it as a “rough idea for a contingency plan” rather than a finalized specification. “I wrote it because I like the alternative even less,” he wrote, adding that in the face of an existential threat, “individual economic incentives outweigh philosophical principles.”
