A new proposal from Paradigm researcher Dan Robinson could let Satoshi Nakamoto and other dormant Bitcoin (BTC) holders defend roughly 1.1 million coins from a future quantum threat without moving a single satoshi.
Paradigm's Quiet Rescue Path
Robinson outlined the idea on May 1 in a research post titled "PACTs: Protecting Your Bitcoin From a Quantum Sunset."
The mechanism, called Provable Address-Control Timestamps, would let holders prove they controlled an address before cryptographically relevant quantum computers exist. Crucially, no on-chain transaction is required.
The holder generates a secret salt, produces a BIP-322 signing proof for the vulnerable script, hashes that proof, and timestamps the commitment through OpenTimestamps.
If Bitcoin ever sunsets spending from addresses with exposed public keys, the holder could later submit a STARK zero-knowledge proof to unlock the frozen coins. The salt and underlying keys stay hidden throughout.
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Why Dormant Holders Care
Robinson framed the work as a hedge, not a finished protocol. He stressed that the rescue phase would still need substantial new plumbing inside Bitcoin and a separate soft fork. Community consensus is far from guaranteed.
The stakes are concentrated in the earliest wallets. Researchers estimate Satoshi-linked addresses hold about 1.1 million BTC, worth more than $75 billion at the figures used in the post.
The competing draft, BIP-361 from Casa security chief Jameson Lopp, would phase out quantum-vulnerable addresses on a roughly five-year timeline. Pre-2012 wallets, including most of Satoshi's known addresses, predate the BIP-32 deterministic key standard and cannot use the rescue paths already discussed for newer wallets, leaving PACTs as one of the few options that targets that specific gap.
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