“Freedom and Property Rights are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other”

- George Washington

It has been said countless times in this space — bitcoin offers the individual the freedom to save and transact with anyone on the planet peer to peer without relying on a third party. Furthermore, bitcoin gives you the ability to park your time and energy and know that no one can freeze, invalidate, or confiscate your money.

This is a breakthrough concept. In the past you could not self custody money, have the ability to send it at the speed of light anywhere in the world, and also not rely on a third party. You could have two but never all three before bitcoin.

I’ve been slightly triggered recently regarding some of the proposals around quantum computing and how the network should respond to a potential quantum threat. There is a growing contingent, led by Jameson Lopp, to confiscate coins that they deem vulnerable to a quantum threat so that a quantum attacker cannot steal the keys and temporarily affect the fiat conversion rate if they were to decide to sell the bitcoins for fiat.

First off, I would like to pose the question — what makes this kind of attack different from a government or any other entity breaking into your house with guns and stealing your private keys? In my opinion, there is no difference with a quantum attacker other than the space by which they are stealing the keys. To the people who are proposing the network should steal coins — would it make a difference to you who is actually stealing coins via quantum computing? If Germany steals the coins and sells them for Euros, will you have a different reaction than if the United States steals them and adds them to their ‘never sell Strategic Reserve?’ I would argue that if the basis of your argument is that you are scared of a USD (or any fiat) denominated price drop, then you are not a bitcoiner, you do not care about freedom and liberty, you do not care about property rights, and you should be treated as an adversary in this space.

Arguing that “every individual node operator decides for themselves which rules they accept” while you coerce economic actors into accepting rules which are not in the best interest of the long term health of the decentralized network is the same thing as the United States walking into a sovereign nation and coercing them into accepting rules that do not benefit the long term health of their nation and people. Bitcoin is not immune to these kinds of attacks just because it is decentralized. Be wary of those who spew deceit in this space. Slay your heroes.

Bitcoin is about consensus rules and consensual transactions. By ensuring that every transaction is consensual, we uphold bitcoin’s value proposition. Hence it is my opinion that if we truly want to give people an option to protect themselves against a quantum attack, the only option is to create an ‘opt-in’ solution which allows participants of the network to opt-in to quantum resistant address types.

There is no difference between a quantum attacker stealing my coins from an old address type that I refused to migrate to a quantum resistant address and me writing down my seed phrase in my iCloud notes and having my iCloud hacked. In both instances I refused to use best security practices which made my keys vulnerable to an attack. Just like we wouldn’t preemptively steal someone’s coins for not using best current practices, we should not steal someone’s coins for not migrating to a certain address type.

For me, one of the foundational value props of bitcoin is that my money is under my control under all circumstances; the network cannot intervene to steal my money or control how it is spent. If coins were stolen due to fears of a quantum attack, I would sell all of my bitcoin and consider this a failed project due to it’s inability to protect my property rights.

To those in favor of confiscating coins, I have a few questions:

Who decides whether a quantum threat is “imminent?”

Why should anyone trust an “altruistic” actor to destroy someone’s property rights before a quantum computer does?

How do you know coins are lost or if someone has chosen not to move to quantum resistant addresses?

Why should anyone have faith in the network after it has proven to be vulnerable to confiscation?

This would set a dangerous and irreversible precedent. In the future, what “attacks” will be deemed serious enough to again infringe on property rights? In my opinion this would just make bitcoin another fiat currency with a supply cap (until Jameson Lopp decides the network must have a supply increase) as it would have proven to be susceptible to human beings imposing their will on the currency.

Property rights are sacred. Consensual transactions and custody are foundational to bitcoin succeeding. Property rights and freedom are inseparable. I’m here for freedom. Why are you here?