Opinion: If Bitcoin is compromised by quantum computing, OG will take over Satoshi's holdings

On December 15th, a heated debate erupted on social media over whether quantum computers could potentially hack Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin wallet and dump its holdings—sparking reactions after YouTuber Josh Otten shared a BTC price chart showing the token plummeting to $3. Otten argued that if a powerful enough quantum computer stole the roughly 1 million BTC held by Bitcoin’s anonymous founder and dumped it on the market, such a $3 crash could occur. Longtime Bitcoin hodler Willy Woo pushed back, noting: “Many OGs (original gangsters, early holders) would buy the dip in a flash crash like this. The Bitcoin network would survive, and most BTC wouldn’t face immediate risk.” He further explained that around 4 million BTC—including Satoshi’s holdings—sit in P2PK (Pay-to-Public-Key) addresses. These addresses expose the full public key when spent on-chain, making them theoretically more vulnerable to quantum attacks. Woo added that once a wallet’s full public key is revealed on-chain, it faces future quantum risk: with enough computing power, a quantum computer could theoretically derive the private key from the public key. Newer Bitcoin address types, however, are less susceptible because they don’t expose the full public key on-chain—if the key is unknown, a quantum computer can’t generate the corresponding private key.