Google’s Quantum Chip Ignites Debate on Freezing Satoshi’s BTC

Ava Labs founder and CEO Emin Gün Sirer proposed freezing Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated 1.1 million BTC. He cited potential vulnerabilities in early wallet cryptography.

Sirer suggested this drastic measure as quantum computing grows capable of exploiting outdated Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) systems used in Nakamoto’s original wallets.

Emin Gün Sirer Wants Satoshi’s Bitcoin Frozen

The Ava labs executive made these remarks amid the growing hype around quantum computing. Recent advancements in quantum computing have sparked discussions about their potential impact on cryptocurrency security. While the technology is indeed groundbreaking, experts assert that the current threat to cryptocurrencies is negligible, thanks to inherent cryptographic designs and changing security measures.

“Quantum computing will make it easier to perform certain operations, like factoring numbers, while others, such as inverting one-way hash functions, remain just as difficult. Further, depending on the platform, a quantum computer has a small window of opportunity to attack. These two facts make the job of a quantum attacker fairly difficult,” the Ava Labs executive noted.

Quantum computers excel at specific tasks, such as factoring large numbers, which threatens traditional encryption methods like RSA and elliptic curve cryptography. However, they are far less effective against one-way hash functions, which are foundational to many cryptocurrency protocols. Based on this, Emin Gün Sirer calls for the freezing of Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin, as the pseudonymous BTC creator’s early-minded coins used the very old Pay-To-Public-Key (P2PK) format.

“There is the issue of Satoshi’s 1m Bitcoin. Haseeb just reminded me that Satoshi’s early-minded coins used the very old Pay-To-Public-Key (P2PK) format, which reveals the public key and gives the attacker time to grind, for the mother of all cryptography bounties. Modern Bitcoin wallets or modern systems like Avalanche don’t use P2PK, but it was there in the early days of Bitcoin. So, as QC gets threatening, the Bitcoin community might want to look into freezing Satoshi’s coins, or more generally, provide a sunset date and freeze all coins at P2PK utxos,” he said.

This legacy format, which Satoshi Nakamoto used to mine approximately 1 million BTC, reveals the public key directly. In addition to the Ava Labs founder, another crypto executive who commented on quantum computing is Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Emin Gün Sirer’s suggestion has sparked widespread debate. Critics argue it undermines crypto’s ethos of immutable ownership.

“Sunsetting Satoshi’s coins fundamentally challenges crypto’s ownership logic,” a user noted on X.

Another opined that freezing the coins might provoke Nakamoto’s reemergence, potentially destabilizing the cryptocurrency world. This debate comes as the mystery of Nakamoto’s identity continues to stir controversy.

Meanwhile, the entire discussion stems from Google’s Williow quantum chip. Google’s groundbreaking quantum computer chip, Willow, has ignited debates across industries, particularly in cryptocurrency. Announced Monday, Willow uses 105 qubits to solve problems in five minutes that classical computers would need over 10 septillion years to complete—a timeframe surpassing the universe’s age.

“Introducing Willow, our new state-of-the-art quantum computing chip with a breakthrough that can reduce errors exponentially as we scale up using more qubits, cracking a 30-year challenge in the field. In benchmark tests, Willow solved a standard computation in <5 mins that would take a leading supercomputer over 10^25 years, far beyond the age of the universe,” said Sundar Pichai, Google and Alphabet CEO.

Bitcoin relies on cryptographic algorithms like SHA-256 for mining. These are strong against traditional computing but could be vulnerable to the immense processing power of a quantum computer. In theory, quantum computers could unravel private keys, jeopardizing wallets and transaction security.

However, Google’s Willow is not there yet. Current quantum computers, including Willow, face challenges like error rates and scalability. To break Bitcoin’s encryption, a quantum computer would need millions of error-corrected “logical qubits,” far beyond Willow’s 105 physical qubits.

Chris Osborn, a quantum computing expert and founder of the Solana ecosystem project Dialect, explained that Willow demonstrates error correction progress. It converts noisy “physical qubits” into more reliable “logical qubits.”

However, breaking encryption requires 5,000 logical qubits, equivalent to millions of physical qubits. Willow’s 105 physical qubits are just the beginning.

“I love quantum computing, I put over a decade of my life toward this field. But all this hand-wringing in crypto over breaking encryption is 100% bikeshedding,” Osborn expressed.

While immediate threats to Bitcoin are minimal, the crypto industry is not complacent. Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, has advocated for quantum-resistant algorithms, emphasizing the need for proactive measures.