Opinion: If Bitcoin is broken by quantum computing, OG will take over Satoshi Nakamoto's holdings

ChainCatcher News, last Saturday, there was an intense discussion on social media about the potential impact of "quantum computers possibly hacking Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoin wallet and dumping his holdings." The debate originated from YouTuber Josh Otten sharing a bitcoin price chart showing BTC plummeting to $3. He stated that if a sufficiently powerful quantum computer were to successfully steal the approximately 1 million BTC held by bitcoin's anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto and dump them on the market, such a scenario could happen.

In response, long-term bitcoin holder Willy Woo said: "Many OGs (early bitcoin holders) would buy during such a flash crash. The bitcoin network would survive; most bitcoins would not be at immediate risk." Woo further pointed out that about 4 million BTC are stored in P2PK (Pay-to-Public-Key) addresses, which include Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoins. This type of address exposes the full public key directly on-chain when spent, making them theoretically more vulnerable to quantum attacks.

He added that once the full public key of a bitcoin wallet is revealed on-chain, it could face the risk of quantum attacks in the future—because, assuming sufficient computing power, a quantum computer could theoretically derive the private key from the public key. In contrast, newer types of bitcoin addresses are not as easily susceptible to quantum attacks, since they do not expose the full public key on-chain; if the public key is unknown, a quantum computer cannot generate the corresponding private key.