Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: J. Lopp's Post-Quantum Migration BIP
by
Not in Town
on 23/07/2025, 19:19:42 UTC
I see a lot of arguments for or against whether the Satoshi era coins are lost or not.  It does not matter and it should not matter.  This subject shall be treated in the least subjective way possible.  For that to happen, we have to imagine the blockchain is private for a second.

If Monero had this subject discussed, there would be no way of knowing whether old coins have moved and which precisely.  It is dangerous to introduce a mandatory migration because it is a precedent and it significantly lessens the credibility of Bitcoin and the bit of our community that feels safe with Bitcoin.  If this becomes mandatory, as much as I love Bitcoin I will likely move on to Monero or just quit.

The world provokes enough stress.  I do not want to move from the stress of my bank freezing my funds for no reason to the stress of my Bitcoin turning to the void when I lack the time to migrate my coins in time.  Because who knows what other threat comes after Bitcoin, and if we made Quantum Computer resistant Bitcoin mandatory when why not make the next threat a mandatory change too!

Imagine the headlines of all news outlets.  They would thrive off this subject, it would keep many people distant from Bitcoin.  People who do not understand Bitcoin entirely may get out of it scared that one day they may not have access to their coins any more.

More over.  I do not understand why this has to affect the early adopters when it could simply affect the people who are not responsible enough or are just unlucky enough to not find access to their keys before a Quantum Computer successfully generates or breaks it.  One of them definitely affects a lot of UTXOs, the other is simply a possibility.  Why affect the UTXOs?

And then, by giving the Bitcoin users more time to migrate IF they will, this means a lot more UTXOs will move to the Quantum Computer resistant addresses before Quantum Computers get to actually do damage to Bitcoin.  IF they ever even get to damage it in any way.

To me, not obliging everybody to do this is a win win situation.  If Quantum Computers do damage then the 'rewards' will be way less, if they do not then a lot more people have the opportunity to move their coins before a situation like this occurs.

Man.  James Howells would pull his hair out of anger if the migration becomes mandatory.  And so would I, for the lack of sense this would make.

Agreed. Furthermore, wallets would display a warning if your funds were in vulnerable addresses. Anyone with bitcoin would know that they have to move their funds to quantum resistant addresses in order to be up to date with security, for the information would be blasted everywhere. It has to be voluntary, though.

If successful attacks have been perpetrated on vulnerable addresses and people still decide not to migrate only to become a victim at a later point in time, it's pretty safe to say the loss of their bitcoin is on them. They would have had plenty of time to migrate.