A proposal to freeze dormant bitcoin, valued at approximately $440 billion, has sparked intense debate among cryptocurrency experts, with some warning that such a move could trigger a severe market repricing and others arguing that it is necessary to protect against the risks posed by quantum computing. The estimated 5.6 million inactive bitcoin, which have been held in wallets for over a decade, are considered vulnerable to potential quantum attacks.
According to Samuel 'Chad' Patt, founder of Op Net, freezing these coins would set a precedent that could have far-reaching consequences for the market. 'Institutional risk desks do not care about the reason, they care about the precedent,' Patt said. Jason Fernandes, a market analyst, agrees that a successful quantum attack would have severe repercussions, but believes that a freeze would be a more significant threat to the system's core assumptions. The debate follows the release of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 361 (BIP-361), which contemplates phasing out bitcoin's current cryptographic signatures and potentially freezing assets that fail to migrate.
Some experts, including Kent Halliburton, CEO of SazMining, argue that freezing dormant coins would undermine bitcoin's core promise of inviolable property rights. Others, such as Ken Kruger, founder of Moon Technologies, believe that the proposal is sensible and that tradeoffs may be necessary to address the quantum threat. The bitcoin community is divided on the issue, with some arguing that the risk of inaction outweighs concerns about precedent or philosophical purity, while others believe that doing nothing is better than taking action that could compromise the cryptocurrency's core values.