- About 6.89M Bitcoin, including Satoshi’s BTC, face potential theft from quantum attacks.
- Roughly 3.4M dormant BTC are vulnerable, making them prime targets for quantum attackers.
- Social consensus delays may prevent urgent protocol upgrades to protect old BTC addresses.
Bitcoin may be facing its biggest threat yet. CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju has raised a stark warning about quantum computing and its risk to Bitcoin wallets.
He says millions of BTC, including coins tied to Bitcoin’s mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto, could be vulnerable. The debate has now spilled onto social media, drawing sharp reactions from the crypto community.
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) February 18, 2026
Quantum Computers Could Crack Old Bitcoin Addresses
Ki Young Ju explained how the threat works. Bitcoin’s security depends on cryptography that classical computers cannot break.
Quantum computers, however, operate differently. Under the right conditions, they could derive a private key from an exposed public key. That means coins that look safe today could be stolen tomorrow.
He shared data to back his concern. About 6.89 million BTC are currently at risk. Of that, 1.91 million BTC sit in addresses with visible public keys. Another 4.98 million BTC may have had their public keys exposed through prior transactions.
1M Satoshi’s BTC Is at the Center of the Storm
The most sensitive part of the discussion involves Satoshi’s coins. Ki Young Ju noted that roughly 3.4 million BTC has not moved in over a decade.
Around 1 million BTC from that total is linked to Satoshi. At current prices, that represents hundreds of billions of dollars. That kind of value makes it a prime target for any future quantum attacker.
He posed a tough question to his followers. Should the Bitcoin community freeze dormant coins to protect the network? Or would doing so go against everything Bitcoin stands for? That question alone sparked strong debate online.
Reaching Social Consensus Is the Real Challenge
Ki Young Ju was direct about where the difficulty lies. He pointed to past Bitcoin disputes as a warning. The block size debate dragged on for over three years and led to hard forks.
SegWit2x failed to gain enough support. Freezing coins would face the same resistance, if not more.
He stressed that developers are not the bottleneck. Social consensus is. Technical solutions can move fast. Getting the Bitcoin community to agree is a far slower process. He warned that rival Bitcoin forks could emerge if the community fails to act before quantum threats become real.
BIP-360 Offers Early Steps Toward Quantum Defense
On a more measured note, crypto commentator Crypto Tice highlighted a related development.
BIP-360, a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal, has moved forward as a structural step toward quantum resistance. The proposal adjusts Taproot key-path behavior to reduce public key exposure under a future quantum threat model.
BITCOIN PROTOCOL UPDATE:
BIP-360 has been pushed forward a structural step toward long-term quantum resistance.
The proposal modifies Taproot key-path behavior to reduce potential public key exposure under a future quantum threat model.
No emergency. No activation.
Just… pic.twitter.com/ksp527nLFe— Crypto Tice (@CryptoTice_) February 18, 2026
Crypto Tice was clear that there is no active quantum threat to Bitcoin today. He described the move as preventative work, not an emergency response. Serious systems, he noted, remove attack surfaces before they become problems.
Bitcoin developers, it seems, are already planning decades ahead.
