According to advocates, freezing dormant bitcoin, currently valued at $76,496.01, would immediately trigger a significant repricing, potentially marking one of the worst trading days for the cryptocurrency since its inception in 2009. This debate has been ongoing among bitcoin developers and industry participants, who are weighing the risks of quantum computing threats against the potential consequences of freezing dormant tokens.
Samuel 'Chad' Patt, founder of Op Net, cautions that freezing any coins, including 'lost' ones, would set a precedent that could undermine the market's confidence in bitcoin's ownership model. 'Institutional risk desks do not care about the reason, they care about the precedent,' he said. Market analyst Jason Fernandes agrees that a successful quantum attack would have severe repercussions, but believes that a freeze would be a more significant blow to the market. 'Institutions won’t just price precedent, they’ll price whether the system can survive a break in its core assumptions,' Fernandes added.
The debate surrounds the estimated 5.6 million BTC held in wallets that have been dormant for over a decade, making them vulnerable to quantum computing attacks. Core Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp has proposed freezing these assets, worth roughly $440 billion, to prevent potential theft. However, other maximalists, such as Mati Greenspan and Kent Halliburton, argue that freezing coins would compromise bitcoin's core principles of immutability and permissionlessness.
'We operate data centers on four continents, and our clients own every machine. That model only works because Bitcoin guarantees unconditional ownership,' Halliburton said. Khushboo Khullar, a venture partner at Lightning Ventures, also believes that freezing dormant coins is a deeply flawed approach that would require a contentious hard fork, violating the network's decentralized ethos.
While some maximalists agree with Lopp's proposal, others, like Ken Kruger, founder and CEO of Moon Technologies, acknowledge the need for compromise in the face of quantum threats. 'It’s extremely challenging to build systems that are truly future-proof, and while Bitcoin has come quite close, quantum may pose a threat that requires tradeoffs participants won’t be happy with,' Kruger said.
Ultimately, the bitcoin community must weigh the risks and consequences of freezing dormant coins against the potential threats posed by quantum computing.