Nearly 7 million Bitcoin face a quantum threat; Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin may be the first to be hit

Gate News updates: on-chain reports show that about 6.7 million bitcoins are currently held in addresses that are vulnerable to quantum computing attacks. These tokens have not moved for a long time, and some of them even belong to Satoshi Nakamoto. In a white paper published on March 30, 2026, Google’s Quantum AI team first quantified the quantum vulnerability of bitcoin, noting that about 100,000 addresses face “static attacks,” meaning an attacker can derive the private key without requiring the owner’s transaction.

Vulnerable bitcoins are concentrated mainly in early mining addresses from 2009 to early 2010. These “Pay-to-Public-Key” (Pay-to-Public-Key, P2PK) scripts expose the public key directly on the blockchain; a quantum computer equipped with the Shor algorithm can easily compute the corresponding private key, thereby stealing funds. Among roughly 6,000 ranked addresses, there are 50 concentrated clusters, and each address contains early mining rewards that have not been used for a long time.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said that progress by Bitcoin Core developers on quantum protection is crucial. The community is increasingly concerned about the threat from quantum computing and hopes to see this issue addressed seriously. Dormant addresses cannot proactively upgrade or migrate to post-quantum cryptography technology, making them a fixed and long-term visible target for attack.

Google’s research team estimates that about 1.7 million bitcoins are locked in P2PK scripts, and after considering address reuse, the total amount of bitcoins vulnerable to quantum attacks could reach 6.9 million. As quantum hardware continues to develop, the potential risk will gradually intensify. The paper also suggests that a “digital salvage” approach is being discussed, including destroying vulnerable bitcoins or setting up legal frameworks for regulatory recovery, but there is still no simple solution.

Industry experts believe that as the post-quantum era approaches, security issues for bitcoin and early blockchain assets will become a focus. How to protect dormant funds, upgrade cryptographic protocols, and develop relevant regulatory policies will have a far-reaching impact on the stability and long-term development of the crypto market.