Headline: Social media flares as users debate a quantum hack on Satoshi’s stash — what’s real risk and what’s panic? A speculative scenario shared online this weekend — that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could steal and dump Satoshi Nakamoto’s roughly 1 million BTC, crashing the price — touched off a heated debate across crypto channels. The spark: YouTuber Josh Otten posted a BTC price chart showing a collapse to $3 and suggested it could happen if a quantum machine stole Satoshi’s coins and dumped them on the market. Long-time Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo responded that many “OGs” would buy a flash crash, and that the Bitcoin network itself would survive — but he flagged a technical nuance: roughly 4 million BTC are stored in pay-to-public-key (P2PK) outputs that, when spent, reveal the full public key onchain and could be vulnerable to future quantum attacks. Why that matters: current public-key cryptography relies on mathematical problems a powerful quantum computer could theoretically solve, letting an attacker derive a private key from a revealed public key. If a quantum adversary can recover private keys associated with onchain public keys, they could move those coins and dump them into the market. By contrast, many newer wallet-address schemes aim to limit when or whether a public key is exposed onchain, reducing immediate vulnerability. Experts push back on imminent alarm. Blockstream co‑founder and cypherpunk Adam Back argued Bitcoin is unlikely to face a real quantum threat for 20–40 years, giving the community time to adopt post‑quantum cryptographic standards that already exist. Market analyst James Check likewise said the protocol itself isn’t doomed — users and services will migrate to quantum‑resistant address types well before a practical quantum threat appears. That doesn’t erase market risk, however. Check warned that the main danger is price volatility: if a quantum attacker did move and sell high‑profile coins, the market impact could be severe — and there’s “no chance,” in his view, the community would agree to freeze Satoshi’s coins preemptively to avoid that outcome. Not everyone sees the attack as practical or worthwhile. Prominent investors and commentators have argued a quantum attack on Bitcoin would be inefficient or unnecessary, while others continue to question whether current privacy and encryption practices are ready for long‑term quantum advances. Bottom line: The technical vulnerability tied to revealed public keys is real in principle, but timelines and practical risk remain contested. The consensus among many experts quoted is that post‑quantum cryptography can and likely will be adopted before a quantum computer capable of breaking Bitcoin’s crypto is built — although the market could still react violently to any high‑profile exploit. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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