Quantum risk puts 7 million BTC — including Satoshi's 1M — at stake

As quantum computing advances, nearly 7 million bitcoin could become vulnerable, including roughly 1 million coins attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto. At an approximate price of $67,600 per bitcoin, Satoshi’s stash would be worth about $67.6 billion, while the total exposed amount has been estimated at roughly $440 billion.

The vulnerability stems from early pay-to-public-key (P2PK) transactions that put public keys on-chain. Modern addresses typically reveal only a hash until coins are spent, but public keys exposed through early mining or address reuse remain exposed indefinitely.

In a sufficiently advanced quantum attack, those keys could theoretically be reversed. Responses divide the community. Some warn that freezing vulnerable coins would undermine Bitcoin’s neutrality and immutability and note the protocol cannot reliably distinguish lost wallets from dormant ones.

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