What happens to Satoshi’s 1M Bitcoin if quantum computers go live?
News Summary
Satoshi Nakamoto's estimated 1.1 million Bitcoin (worth $67 billion-$124 billion) is held in older Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) addresses, which permanently expose the public key on the blockchain, making them a potential target for quantum computers. This differs from modern P2PKH or SegWit addresses where the public key is only revealed upon transaction. Quantum computers, leveraging Shor's algorithm, can theoretically reverse-engineer a public key to find the corresponding private key within hours or days, thereby breaking Bitcoin's Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) security. While a machine with 2,330 stable logical qubits (requiring over 1 million physical qubits) is estimated for this, the timeline for
Background
Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, holds an estimated 1.1 million Bitcoin in wallets that have remained untouched since their creation, often referred to as the crypto world's
In-Depth AI Insights
Q: What are the far-reaching implications of a potential Satoshi Bitcoin theft on the broader crypto market, particularly stablecoins and the DeFi ecosystem? A: A theft of Satoshi's wallet would be an unprecedented black swan event for crypto, with impacts far beyond the mere loss of value: - Market Trust Crisis: It would fundamentally shatter Bitcoin's