TLDR Tech / Crypto
Post-Quantum Migration and Abandoned Coins
Coinbase has formed a Quantum Advisory Council to guide the migration of blockchain infrastructure from ECDSA/secp256k1 to quantum-resistant schemes including lattice-based cryptography, STARKs, and hash-based signatures, before quantum hardware of sufficient power can derive private keys from exposed public addresses. The council's most contested governance question concerns P2PK-exposed wallets, Satoshi's estimated 1M BTC chief among them, whose owners are unreachable and cannot self-migrate ahead of a quantum threat. Options under debate include freezing those wallets at a protocol deadline, burning the coins outright, or leaving them open to quantum extraction, with the last scenario posing a supply shock that could collapse BTC's market price. The council's output also informs Coinbase's quantum-safe custody roadmap and frames a policy position ahead of NIST post-quantum standard finalization.
Read the full story