Author: Claude, Shenchao TechFlow
DeepChain Summary: On April 14, Bitcoin developers including Jameson Lopp officially submitted BIP-361, proposing a three-phase phase-out of ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, ultimately freezing all early wallets that have not migrated to quantum-resistant addresses.
The proposal concerns approximately 1.7 million BTC in P2PK addresses, including around 1.1 million BTC held by Satoshi Nakamoto, valued at roughly $74 billion, with about 34% of all Bitcoin globally at risk of quantum attacks due to exposed public keys. The proposal was immediately met with fierce backlash from the community, with critics labeling it as "authoritarian confiscation," but Lopp responded that he would rather freeze 5.6 million dormant BTC than let them fall into the hands of quantum hackers.
Renowned cypherpunk and Casa Chief Technology Officer Jameson Lopp, along with five researchers, submitted a draft titled BIP-361—full name: "Post-Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sunset"—to the GitHub bitcoin/bips repository on April 14. The proposal’s core argument is straightforward: before quantum computers can break existing cryptographic algorithms, the network should proactively freeze all Bitcoin wallets that rely on legacy signature schemes.
According to CoinDesk, Lopp said in an interview that he does not currently believe these measures need to be implemented immediately, but emphasized that he is engaging in "adversarial thinking about potential future threats." He further admitted on X: "I know people don’t like this proposal. I don’t like it either. But I wrote it because I dislike the alternative even more."
Three-Phase "Sunset Plan": From Restrictions to Freezing
BIP-361 builds upon BIP-360, which was released in February and introduced a new address format called P2MR (pay-to-Merkle-root), similar to existing Taproot addresses but removing the quantum-vulnerable key path to provide forward secrecy for new coins. BIP-361 addresses the legacy issue: as of March 1, 2026, over 34% of all Bitcoin has had its public key exposed on-chain, according to data directly from the BIP-361 document.
The proposal is designed with three progressive stages:
Phase A takes effect approximately three years after activation, at which point the network will prohibit new BTC from being sent to legacy addresses, and all users should have already migrated to quantum-resistant address types. Phase B takes effect five years after activation, at which point legacy ECDSA and Schnorr signatures will be fully deprecated, and any Bitcoin remaining in vulnerable addresses will be effectively frozen. Phase C is an incomplete relief mechanism designed to allow legitimate owners with mnemonic phrases to recover frozen funds using zero-knowledge proofs.
According to Live Bitcoin News, GitHub reviewer Conduition considers Phase C to be "the most critical component of any confiscatory freeze proposal" and argues that BIP-361 is incomplete without this mechanism.
The proposal author describes the freeze mechanism as a "refined private incentive": lost or frozen coins only slightly increase the value of others' coins, while coins recovered from a quantum attack reduce everyone's holdings.
5.6 million dormant BTC and $74 billion in Satoshi's holdings
This debate strikes a nerve because the scale involved is enormous.
According to Lopp’s estimate, approximately 5.6 million bitcoins—28% of the total supply—have not been moved in over a decade, and he and other analysts believe these coins have likely been lost. At current prices, these dormant coins are worth approximately $420 billion.
The most symbolic of these is Satoshi Nakamoto’s holdings. According to Cointelegraph, approximately 1.7 million BTC are locked in early P2PK addresses, including around 1.1 million BTC held by Satoshi Nakamoto, currently valued at roughly $74 billion. The public keys of these addresses have long been publicly exposed on the blockchain; once quantum computers reach a critical level of capability, attackers could use Shor’s algorithm to derive the private keys from the public keys and gain direct control over the funds.
Lopp warned in a CoinDesk interview that even without a large-scale sell-off, "any credible evidence that someone has the ability to recover lost or vulnerable coins using a quantum computer would trigger immediate market panic."
On Polymarket, the odds for "Will Satoshi Nakamoto move any Bitcoin in 2026?" are currently around 9.3%, up from 4.5% at the start of the year, but reacted only mildly to the release of BIP-361, suggesting the market still views it as a governance discussion rather than an urgent catalyst.
Community strongly pushes back: "Stealing money to prevent being stolen"
BIP-361 touches on Bitcoin’s most fundamental philosophical principle: ownership should not be conditional. As soon as the proposal was made public, criticism quickly emerged.
Bitcoin Magazine editor Brian Trollz outright rejected the proposal; TFTC founder Marty Bent called it "ridiculous"; and Metaplanet’s business development lead Phil Geiger sarcastically remarked, "We have to steal people’s money to prevent their money from being stolen."
The comment by X platform user Cato the Elder has been widely shared: “This quantum proposal is highly authoritarian and confiscatory... There is no reasonable justification for forcing an upgrade and rendering old spending paths obsolete. The upgrade should be 100% voluntary.”
Leo Fan, founder of Cysic and former head of quantum resistance at Algorand, pointed out from a technical governance perspective: “Ownership has become conditional. Holding a key no longer guarantees you can spend. This undermines Bitcoin’s promise as an unstoppable currency.” However, Fan also acknowledged that removing millions of bitcoins from circulation could tighten supply and thereby push up the price.
Discussions on the Reddit community r/cryptocurrency were equally intense (the post received 631 upvotes and 311 comments), with the top-rated comment stating: “If you fork a frozen wallet to hedge investment risk, BTC is no longer BTC.” Another user held the exact opposite view: “Let them get hacked, let the price crash for a month. We’ll still buy the dip, just like last time during the existential crisis.”