TechFlow reported on June 13 that a Coinbase-led cryptography expert advisory committee has released a report saying Bitcoin should immediately begin preparing for the risk of quantum-computing attacks. The report does not present the issue as a simple technical upgrade, because the most disputed question is not only how Bitcoin could introduce quantum-resistant signatures, but also what should happen to coins that remain under older signing schemes for a long period of time.
The dispute centers on unmigrated Bitcoin
The committee includes Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and other leading experts. According to the report, the main point of disagreement is no longer the general idea of adding quantum-resistant signature technology. Instead, the unresolved question is how the Bitcoin ecosystem should treat BTC that is not migrated after a new signing approach becomes available. The report refers to millions of bitcoins that could be stolen by future quantum computing attacks if they remain exposed under legacy conditions.
One camp supports setting a final deadline. Under that approach, Bitcoin’s existing ECDSA and Schnorr signature schemes would stop being supported after the deadline, and assets that had not migrated would be frozen. Supporters of this approach argue that such a step would prevent future quantum attackers from obtaining a large amount of BTC and then disrupting the market. This position links the migration deadline, the discontinuation of legacy signatures, and the freezing of unmigrated assets into one policy path.
The opposing camp argues that freezing legacy BTC would amount to asset confiscation. Critics say such a move would conflict with Bitcoin’s core ideas of immutability and users’ complete control over their assets. They also warn that accepting freezes for security reasons could create a precedent for freezing assets in the future under regulatory pressure. In that view, the issue is not merely a cryptographic migration question, but a governance question about the limits of changing Bitcoin’s rules.
Technical development should not wait for governance consensus
The Coinbase advisory committee said the proposed approaches are not mutually exclusive and could be combined, but it declined to state a position on whether legacy BTC should be frozen. The report says the final decision should be made through Bitcoin community governance rather than by the committee itself. At the same time, the committee emphasized two points: the technical development of quantum-resistant signature migration should begin immediately and should not wait for the governance debate to conclude; and users need to receive clear information about the risks so that long-term uncertainty does not affect the Bitcoin ecosystem.