04-18-2026Price:

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Lopp proposes freezing Satoshi's coins

Saturday, April 18, 2026 · from 2 podcasts
2 SOURCESRabbit Hole RecapBitcoin And
  • Jameson Lopp proposes freezing 1.7M BTC to block quantum theft, including Satoshi’s stash.
  • BlackRock and Coinbase back quantum-resistant upgrades, risking chain splits.
  • Critics call it confiscation; supporters say it’s survival.

Fears of quantum computing cracking Bitcoin’s cryptography have triggered a radical proposal: freeze 1.7 million early Bitcoin, including Satoshi Nakamoto’s untouched stash. Jameson Lopp and co-authors introduced BIP 361, which would invalidate legacy P2PK addresses by 2029 unless migrated to quantum-resistant formats.

The plan divides the community. On Rabbit Hole Recap, Matt Odell and Marty Bent warned that freezing coins violates Bitcoin’s immutability. They see BlackRock and Coinbase’s public support as institutional overreach - a push to sanitize Bitcoin for mass adoption, even at the cost of its founding principles.

"If you can freeze an address because it's old, you can freeze any address. That's not Bitcoin anymore."

- Matt Odell, Rabbit Hole Recap

Supporters argue the network won’t survive a quantum break-in. A thief could drain millions of BTC overnight, collapsing confidence. BIP 361 includes a zero-knowledge proof rescue mechanism for late migrations, but critics remain unconvinced. The philosophical rift isn’t just technical - it’s about who controls Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor continues accumulating, using a high-yield dividend product to fund purchases. The structure relies on selling MSTR stock to pay an 11.5% yield, creating artificial demand. If Bitcoin’s price falters, the model risks unraveling.

"We’re not building a financial product. We’re building a national treasury."

- Michael Saylor, Bitcoin And

The stakes are existential. If institutions win, Bitcoin may become a regulated, upgradeable asset. If cypherpunks hold firm, the chain may remain raw but whole. The fork isn’t just coming - it’s already here.

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Rabbit Hole Recap
Rabbit Hole Recap

RABBIT HOLE RECAP #405: STRETCH YOUR CHEEKS FOR THE BITCOIN BULL • Apr 17

  • MicroStrategy raised roughly $2.1 billion via STRiPS this week, which Zach notes could be used to buy about 27,200 Bitcoin at current prices.
  • MicroStrategy's STRiPS currently trades at a slight discount, priced at $99.21 against its $100 par value, with a market cap of roughly $6.37 billion. Matt notes the product's dividend rate has climbed from its initial 9% to about 11.5%.
  • Michael Saylor proposed making STRiPS dividend payments semi-monthly instead of monthly, a change that would need shareholder approval. The hosts speculate this could smooth out the buying pressure around dividend dates.
  • Matt argues the risk in STRiPS is layered and underappreciated, involving DeFi protocols, other public companies using it as a treasury asset, and the potential for a negative feedback loop if Bitcoin's price falls and MicroStrategy must sell shares to fund dividends.
  • At the OP_NEXT conference, institutional panelists from Coinbase and BlackRock expressed concern that investor uncertainty around Bitcoin's quantum resistance could limit capital inflows, a claim Marty finds ironic given Bitcoin's recent price surge.
  • Matt expresses a tinfoil-hat view that pressure for a quantum-related protocol change could be used to disenfranchise open-source developers and split the community, with institutions likely to push a fork that freezes legacy coins under the guise of an upgrade.
  • Odell highlights a new 'quantum-safe Bitcoin' proposal that uses existing consensus rules, requiring about $200 of GPU compute to create a safe address but making transactions non-standard. He likes that it provides an opt-in path without a soft fork.
  • Marty points out that Satoshi chose the libsecp256k1 cryptographic library because it lacked hard-coded constants that could hide a backdoor, arguing that blindly following NIST-approved standards for quantum resistance could introduce new vulnerabilities.
  • Arthur Hayes stated in an interview that over 90% of his net worth is in Bitcoin, leading the hosts to conclude many prominent 'shitcoiners' are actually Bitcoin maximalists using altcoins to accumulate more Bitcoin.
Also from this episode: (5)

Adoption (1)

  • Seth and Marty made a bet on whether MicroStrategy will hold over or under 1 million Bitcoin by June 15th, with Seth taking the under and Marty taking the over. MicroStrategy currently holds about 780,000 Bitcoin.

Custody (1)

  • Zach from BPI notes Tether's new self-custodial wallet is chain-agnostic and offers first-class Bitcoin and Lightning support, which he sees as a pragmatic step to onboard Tether users to Bitcoin.

Iran (1)

  • The Human Rights Foundation reported Iran's regime has ordered the seizure of assets from over 100 citizens abroad amid an internet blackout exceeding 43 days, a situation Zach argues makes Bitcoin the ideal tool for moving value without trust.

Society (1)

  • All hosts express concern and hope for the well-being of Preston Pysh, who has disappeared from public view without explanation in recent weeks.

Nostr (1)

  • Odell highlights the Hamster project, which adds reticulum/LoRa mesh networking to Nostr for offline communication and zaps, as a critical tool for environments like Iran with extended internet blackouts.
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Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News
Bitcoin And | Bitcoin & Economic News

1300! | Bitcoin News • Apr 15

  • Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed concern to Elon Musk about X Money, citing potential risks to consumers, national security, and financial stability. Warren highlighted X's operational track record and X Money's offer of up to 6% APY, surpassing the federal funds rate.
  • Pakistan's State Bank lifted a seven-year ban on banking access for crypto firms, effective immediately, allowing licensed Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to open accounts. This follows the passage of the Virtual Asset Act of 2026, establishing the PVARA regulatory body.
  • Jameson Lopp and co-authors proposed BIP 361, a three-phase plan to freeze quantum-vulnerable Bitcoin on the network, including Satoshi's estimated 1.7 million BTC stash. This aims to prevent theft if quantum computers advance sufficiently, building on BIP 360's quantum-resistant addresses.
  • David Bennett questions the philosophical premise of BIP 361, arguing it makes unproven assumptions about quantum computing and falsely claims developers are doing nothing to address quantum resistance. He notes the proposal's existence disproves the latter point.
  • MicroStrategy's STRC ATM accumulated $2.74 billion in volume over two trading sessions, absorbing an estimated 29,914 Bitcoin. This volume more than doubled the previous week's total of 13,927 Bitcoin, indicating significant investor interest ahead of the ex-dividend date.
  • A new class of crypto treasury companies and DeFi protocols are forming around MicroStrategy's STRC stock, seeking Bitcoin exposure and its 11.5% monthly cash dividend. Firms like Saturn Credit and Apics are accumulating STRC, with nearly $200 million in tokenized STRC existing on Ethereum.
  • The Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) proposed unlocking 62.3 billion WLFI governance tokens, previously locked indefinitely and without transferability. This move follows a controversy where WLFI used 5 billion of its tokens as collateral to borrow $75 million USD.
  • The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that global public debt could reach 100% of global GDP by 2029 under current trends, driven by rising defense spending and contributions from the US and China. This scenario implies entire economic output would go to debt servicing.
  • The IMF's debt warning strengthens Bitcoin's long-term appeal as a haven asset, being decentralized and outside traditional finance. Historical precedents like the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis and early 2023 US regional banking turmoil saw Bitcoin rally during TradFi stress.
  • David Bennett maintains a personal stance of not owning Monero or Zcash, despite acknowledging them as the only other crypto assets he would consider besides Bitcoin. He declines to elaborate on his technical reasons.
  • Bitcoin is currently trading at $74,100 with a market capitalization of $1.48 trillion and a total supply of 20,016,073.03 BTC. The network hash rate stands at 698.6 exahashes per second, with average high-priority fees at 3 sats per vB.
Also from this episode: (2)

Startups (1)

  • Allbirds, a struggling shoe company, announced a pivot to AI computing infrastructure, rebranding as Newbird AI, after its stock tumbled 99% from its 2021 IPO. The company aims to provide GPU-as-a-service and AI-native cloud solutions.

AI & Tech (1)

  • Jacky Wrong developed 'Jim Opus,' a Claude Opus-style fine-tune built on Google's open-source Gemma 4, designed for local AI reasoning on consumer hardware. The larger variant, Jim Opus 4.26B, uses a mixture of experts architecture, activating only 4 billion parameters from a total of 26 billion for efficient local performance.
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