Quantum risk puts Satoshi’s stash in the spotlight — and a controversial patch is circulating
The long-feared quantum threat to Bitcoin has moved from theoretical to actionable in some circles, raising fresh concerns about the roughly 1.1 million BTC linked to Satoshi Nakamoto. Those coins are held in Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) addresses, which reveal a user’s public key when spent — a property that could make them vulnerable to future quantum attacks that recover private keys from public ones.
Developer Hunter Beast has proposed Hourglass v2 to blunt the potential market shock if P2PK coins are ever compromised. The proposal would dramatically slow how quickly P2PK outputs can be spent: only one P2PK output would be allowed as a transaction input per block, and newly created P2PK outputs would be tightly restricted — they could only be created by addresses already spending P2PK outputs, and P2PK outputs could not be generated from other output types. Together, these limits translate to roughly 1 BTC per block, or about 144 BTC per day, that can be moved from P2PK addresses.
Why that matters: a Chainalysis report estimates roughly $718 billion worth of Bitcoin sits in addresses vulnerable to quantum attacks, including P2PK outputs. Without constraints, attackers could theoretically chain thousands of P2PK spends into a single block — the proposal’s authors warn that over 6,000 P2PK transactions could be packed into a block, potentially releasing more than 300,000 BTC in one go. At that pace, all P2PK coins — including Satoshi’s — could be spent in hours. Under Hourglass v2, moving the same supply would take more than 32 years, vastly reducing the chance of a sudden, market-crushing dump.
The proposal is framed as a compromise to minimize selling pressure while avoiding more extreme options. Some have floated freezing or burning Satoshi’s coins to keep them safe, but Hourglass v2’s authors warn that such actions would be seen by many as confiscatory and could set a dangerous precedent for altering Bitcoin’s monetary rules.
Hourglass v2 also intentionally applies only to P2PK outputs. Other output types that remain vulnerable to quantum risk are not included, because imposing similar constraints across the board could hinder an organic transition to quantum-resistant address types and disrupt normal usage. That said, those other outputs remain exposed in the absence of broader migration to quantum-resistant schemes.
A final practical point: proponents say original keyholders — including Satoshi, if they ever move their keys — should still be able to spend their P2PK coins after activation, provided no quantum attackers are simultaneously competing to redeem P2PK transactions.
Hourglass v2 is designed as a defensive, market-stability measure rather than a cure-all. It underscores the tension the Bitcoin community faces: protect the network and holders from a plausible future threat without undermining the protocol’s immutability or hampering a voluntary move to quantum-safe addresses. The proposal is likely to fuel debate about how best to balance security, decentralization, and property rights as quantum computing advances.
Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news
