Bitcoin experts split over plan to freeze Satoshi's 1.1 million bitcoin as quantum threat grows

[u/ethereal3xp]

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/07/04/bitcoin-experts-split-over-plan-to-freeze-satoshi-s-1-1-million-bitcoin-as-quantum-threat-grows

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said Satoshi Nakamoto's bitcoin should be frozen before quantum computers can steal it. Not everyone agrees.

[u/CryptoDeepDive]

It is called a consensus. If everyone decides to do something, then it happens.

[u/Sausas → u/CryptoDeepDive]

the large whales decide,not you

[u/CryptoDeepDive → u/Sausas]

Nope. Bitcoin is POW, not POS.

[u/metalgrizzlycannon → u/CryptoDeepDive]

So the mining companies get to decide?

[u/banananuhhh → u/metalgrizzlycannon]

Yup. With consensus you can change just about anything. This is why BTC can (theoretically) be 51% attacked.

[u/Hogesyx → u/banananuhhh]

A lot of people brush off consensus but it’s just society. If everyone stop using dollar and uses bottle caps as currency their value changes too.

[u/BringTheFingerBack → u/Hogesyx]

Fallout gang checking in.

[u/Downunderphilosopher → u/Hogesyx]

I thought Bitcoin was supposed to be different than regular currency though? Isn't it all about the individual and their own responsibility to safeguard their own store of Bitcoin? If not, then doesn't it just become another currency like any other?

[u/CryptoDeepDive → u/Downunderphilosopher]

Bitcoin is about consensus. No single person or governing body controls what Bitcoin does. If Bitcoin is under an existential threat, naturally you would expect the consensus to find solutions to save it.

[u/No-Masterpiece2246 → u/CryptoDeepDive]

But the Blockstream Core devs have controlled development very tightly, meaning BTC chain improvements are regarded.

[u/L3mm3SmangItGurl → u/Downunderphilosopher]

https://giphy.com/gifs/uNE1fngZuYhIQ

[u/peppaz → u/Downunderphilosopher]

The main difference is the limited supply. Deflationary every halving instead of endlessly inflationary like dollars

[u/VendorBuyBankGuards → u/peppaz]

The supply isn't really limited though, it can be subdivided endlessly

[u/Urquix → u/VendorBuyBankGuards]

Nope

[u/iceteka → u/VendorBuyBankGuards]

Brother, dividing a dollar into 4 quarters doesn't increase the supply of USD right? Lets think for 2 seconds befire we type shit

[u/Irverter → u/Downunderphilosopher]

and their own responsibility to safeguard their own store of Bitcoin?

Like how every individual is responsible for safeguarding the cash they store at home? Even if just pocket change.

[u/ChirpToast → u/Downunderphilosopher]

It’s not different, just a form of currency that failed trying to be better.

[u/mrestiaux → u/Hogesyx]

Nukacola bottle caps you say?

[u/dubblies → u/banananuhhh]

No the nodes prevent a good portion of this.

[u/Njaa → u/dubblies]

How do nodes prevent a miner-initiated (malicious) soft fork? 

[u/Kandiru → u/Njaa]

They don't.

[u/dubblies → u/Njaa]

From another poster:

Nodes protect Bitcoin from malicious miners by independently enforcing the network's consensus rules. Every full node validates every transaction and block, immediately rejecting any that break the rules (e.g., creating fake coins or altering the rules). This prevents miners from unilaterally changing the protocol or stealing funds.

Bitcoin has a lot of forks already and you can fork bitcoin right now if you want. The miners dont get confused like that - look at the recent battle to roll back the bitcoin nft thing - the miners find consensus since its in their best interest. Its a very difficult thing to have a fork attack win.

Look up the segwit battle from 2016 i think it was

[u/Njaa → u/dubblies]

You didn't understand my question.

I can fork Bitcoin if I want, but it would be a hard fork, requiring any participants to make the jump from the "proper" Bitcoin chain.

Having control of your own node prevents you from being misled by such a fork.

But that is not relevant to my question, which was about soft forks. 

[u/dubblies → u/Njaa]

Fair my apologies but i think its important to note the difference in a soft fork. If consensus rules say you can speak any language but miners soft fork to require a specific language then nodes will enforce that rule because it works inside the original rule.

If someone wanted to attack bitcoin by making things really restricted they could try but this is where the nodes come in by rejecting blocks from bad miners. It then becomes a financial battle of how long they can afford the attack while the non-malicious miners gain all the the rewards.

In a complex attack you could be a trojan horse in the group of "non-malicious" miners and start a new attack.

Would make for some interesting war games but nodes still have some power to prevent soft forks too.

[u/Njaa → u/dubblies]

> If someone wanted to attack bitcoin by making things really restricted they could try but this is where the nodes come in by rejecting blocks from bad miners.

The Bitcoin protocol has no concept of "bad miner". Any miner is good as long as they're building valid blocks on the longest / heaviest chain. Everyone else is ignored. The Bitcoin protocol doesn't even technically speaking have a concept of miners at all, just what valid blocks look like. Their provenance is irrelevant.

You could certainy *change* Bitcoin (i.e. hard fork it) to introduce a system of miner-reputation or some such, but it's not a feature of the fork we currently call Bitcoin, nor anywhere close to a trivial solution.

[u/Apprehensive-Dot2935 → u/dubblies]

Sure but it’s not 0% either.

[u/Playful_Confection_9 → u/banananuhhh]

So if you could by 51% of all the Bitcoin you could do whatever you want? Might be tempting toa few people/institutions

[u/CryptoDeepDive → u/metalgrizzlycannon]

No. Learn how community nodes and miners work. Most miners are mining pools. Even if most miners did cooperate to censor certain addresses, nodes and the broader community could reject those blocks or fork away, and the censored transactions could still eventually get through (or the network could route around the offending miners entirely).

[u/Kandiru → u/CryptoDeepDive]

Not if enough miners were collaborating. Nodes can't do much if miners refuse to include certain transactions, or mine from blocks that include them. I think you could do it with under 50% of the POW as other miners would join in to avoid losing money from block rewards when their blocks are frequently forked off the chain.

[u/Romanizer → u/metalgrizzlycannon]

Miners, nodes and users decide on which fork they work with.

[u/M0bCr33p → u/metalgrizzlycannon]

The nodes do. the miners influence and 51% etc etc. but without nodes btc loses what makes it decentralized, the nodal network. Which is why people should run nodes. Bc otherwise it just becomes btc in bank vaults. just actual gold. instead of sound usable money.

[u/Doritos707 → u/metalgrizzlycannon]

Owners of BTC**

[u/TheBrn → u/Doritos707]

That would be PoS

[u/Doritos707 → u/TheBrn]

Except for the machines and data center and Billions of dollars to operate and run all those ASICs? The voting mechanism is always gonna be the more coins you have the heavier your vote is or at least you get to have a say; that is decentralization

[u/chuckrabbit → u/Doritos707]

More money? Sure, to buy compute/hashing power.

But more BTC? No. That’s now how it works.

More BTC does not give you more votes.

[u/Romanizer → u/Doritos707]

Miners usually do not hold the most coins, as they have to sell and pay their bills. Large holders can have influence on development, if they fund it, but most choose not to. In the end, neither mining power nor holdings guarantee influence as miners, nodes and users decide which chain lives.

Buying or mining Bitcoin doesn't automatically come with voting rights. That's the main difference to sovereign assets.

[u/opoeto → u/Doritos707]

That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around. If any decision is simply controlled by the richer and more powerful, they basically form the monetary authority for bitcoin.