In a recent blog post, prominent cypherpunk Jameson Lopp has advocated for burning those Bitcoins that lack quantum resistance.
He believes that quantum recovery will not work due to the violation of property rights and the erosion of trust. Moreover, large-scale theft would crash the Bitcoin price.
“I, for one, am not interested in rewarding quantum capable entities by inflating the circulating money supply just because some people lost their keys long ago and some laggards are not upgrading their Bitcoin wallet’s security,” he said.
Why quantum recovery won’t work
According to Lopp, a person with a powerful quantum computer will likely target the Bitcoin rich list, targeting those addresses that have exposed their private keys. Notably, this applies to the vast majority of the burned addresses.
Lopp argues that quantum recovery would weaken the security of the network since it would allow the coins to be claimed by those who did not earn them. The prominent software engineer compared this to a burglar investing in the resources and skills needed for robbing a building. He has stated that quantum miners would be “vampires feeding upon the system.”
Even if such efforts are benevolent in nature, the powerful technology could still end up in “adversarial hands.”
