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BITCOIN

BlackRock pushes to freeze Satoshi’s coins

Thursday, April 23, 2026 · from 2 podcasts
2 SOURCESWhat Bitcoin DidRabbit Hole Recap
  • BlackRock and Coinbase back a Bitcoin fork to freeze old coins, including Satoshi’s, over quantum fears.
  • Michael Saylor’s $2.7B Bitcoin buyback fuels yield-driven speculation, not organic demand.
  • Institutional power now outweighs cypherpunk values in shaping Bitcoin’s future.

BlackRock wants Bitcoin safe for pension funds by 2029 - even if it means freezing Satoshi Nakamoto’s million coins.

At OP Next, BlackRock and Coinbase reps pushed for a quantum-resistant fork, citing BIP 361. The proposal would disable legacy UTXOs unless moved to post-quantum addresses. That includes Satoshi’s untouched stash - never spent, never moved, but now a liability in institutional eyes. Rob Hamilton on What Bitcoin Did warns this redefines Bitcoin’s social contract: freezing coins to prevent theft is still theft.

"Freezing coins to prevent theft is still a violation of property rights."

- Danny Knowles, What Bitcoin Did

Wall Street’s economic weight now decides which chain survives. In 2017, miners and users fought the Block Size War. Today, exchanges and ETF issuers pick winners. If BlackRock blesses one fork, it becomes the market’s Bitcoin - not by consensus, but by capital. Self-custody is the only vote left. As Hamilton notes, users on exchanges surrender their choice to corporate boards.

The new Bitcoin narrative skips the Hero’s Journey. Early adopters endured lost seeds, phishing, and volatility - a trial that forged conviction. Now, ETFs and MicroStrategy’s Stretch product offer price exposure without skin in the game. Michael Saylor moved $2.7B into Bitcoin in two weeks using dividend-funded buys. The yield attracts retail, but the structure depends on rising stock prices.

"Saylor is racing toward owning one million Bitcoin by the middle of June."

- Matt Odell, Rabbit Hole Recap

If the stock falters, the flywheel breaks. Critics call it a Ponzi; supporters call it genius. But the deeper risk is cultural: a network full of passive holders won’t defend decentralization when pressured. When the next ordeal hits - quantum or regulatory - this cohort may accept frozen coins if it saves their portfolio.

ProtocolETFsRegulationMining
Matt OdellMichael SaylorBlackRockCoinbaseMicroStrategyBitcoinSatoshi

Source Intelligence

- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes

What Bitcoin Did
What Bitcoin Did

Danny Knowles

Should Satoshi’s Coins Be Frozen? | Rob Hamilton • Apr 21

  • Rob Hamilton frames Bitcoin as a personal "Hero's Journey" for many, starting with a refusal of the call to adventure, then finding mentors like Andreas Antonopoulos or Michael Saylor, and navigating tests like holding through volatility.
  • Danny Knowles observes Bitcoin's shift from a counterculture movement prioritizing self-custody and running nodes before 2021 to an institutional adoption phase where buying ETFs or using brokers is more common.
  • Rob Hamilton reports on recent discussions at the Op Next conference about quantum computing threats to Bitcoin, particularly concerning freezing Satoshi's coins due to potential vulnerability.
  • Danny Knowles explains that a cryptographically relevant quantum computer could steal coins from exposed public keys, affecting addresses with a viewable public key on-chain, such as Satoshi's coins and Taproot addresses.
  • Rob Hamilton emphasizes that quantum computers have only factored numbers up to 15, while Bitcoin's security relies on numbers up to 2^256, indicating a massive gap requiring significant engineering breakthroughs.
  • Rob Hamilton notes some argue for freezing Satoshi's coins (BIP 361) to prevent theft by future quantum attackers, citing potential institutional unwillingness to support a split and the desire to remove supply FUD.
  • Danny Knowles strongly opposes freezing Satoshi's coins, arguing it constitutes theft and violates Bitcoin's fundamental property rights, asserting that the long-term value of an unfrozen chain is superior despite short-term market dumps.
  • Jonas Nick of Blockstream has developed post-quantum signing algorithms like "shrinks and shrimps" that are hash-based, offering security against quantum attacks but resulting in significantly larger transaction signatures and potentially reduced transactions per second.
  • Rob Hamilton highlights Robin Linus's "Binoash" paper, which describes a method to create quantum-proof Bitcoin transactions *today* without a protocol upgrade, though these transactions are large (10 KB) and not standard for mempool propagation.
  • Danny Knowles suggests freezing Satoshi's coins could coerce Satoshi, if alive, into revealing themselves or moving funds against their assumed intent, potentially violating the network's property rights.
  • Rob Hamilton explains that exchanges face significant operational complexity in managing chain splits, needing to double infrastructure for two networks and reconcile the "BTC" ticker, while self-custody allows users to express their economic opinion.
  • Rob Hamilton points out that Satoshi's initial mining was necessary for Bitcoin's early network propagation, as fewer than 10 computers were mining for the first year, with the first positive difficulty adjustment occurring in December 2009.
  • Rob Hamilton promotes Anchorwatch, which offers insured and uninsured Bitcoin custody, including multi-institutional custody, and is developing an API for businesses to integrate their wallet management software.
Also from this episode: (2)

Philosophy (1)

  • Rob Hamilton explains Joseph Campbell popularized the "Hero's Journey" story arc, exemplified by Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, involving a call to adventure, mentors, challenges, and returning a treasure to the community.

Adoption (1)

  • Rob Hamilton argues institutional adoption was an "inevitable" next phase for Bitcoin's success, moving beyond niche uses like darknet markets, although new cohorts entering Bitcoin have different perspectives and values.
BTC MarketsAdoptionPrivacy
Rabbit Hole Recap
Rabbit Hole Recap

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

  • 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.
  • 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.
Also from this episode: (6)

Markets (2)

  • 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.
  • 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.

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.

BTC Markets (1)

  • 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.

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.
BTC MarketsProtocolETFsAdoption

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