Bitcoin Developer Jameson Lopp Advocates for Freezing 5.6 Million BTC to Prevent Hacker Exploitation

A prominent Bitcoin core developer has expressed a preference for freezing the estimated 5.6 million lost or dormant bitcoin, valued at approximately $420 billion, rather than risking them being exploited by future quantum hackers. Jameson Lopp stated that, although he does not want to freeze anyone's bitcoin, removing dormant tokens from circulation might be a safer option for the network. Lopp's comments follow the release of BIP-361, a proposal exploring the phase-out of Bitcoin's current cryptographic signatures and potentially freezing assets that fail to migrate. The proposal has sparked intense debate within the community, with some arguing that freezing dormant bitcoin accounts would undermine the cryptocurrency's core principles of immutable and censorship-resistant ownership.