Strategy CEO Michael Saylor claims that "quantum fears" could actually be uniquely bullish for Bitcoin. He reframes what is typically seen as an existential threat to Bitcoin as a catalyst for a massive upgrade and a price increase.
A bullish catalyst
Saylor argues that a quantum threat will not appear in a vacuum just for Bitcoin. It will be a global crisis that will affect every bank, government, and defense contractor simultaneously. The US government, Apple, Microsoft, and major banks will all force upgrades to "quantum-resistant" encryption standards.
There will be no "block size war" style debate since the threat will be existential for everyone. He compares it to Y2K, a known deadline where everyone agrees they must upgrade the software or lose everything.
"Your bank will say... please install the new client software... if you don't, we're going to freeze your funds," he said.
Saylor believes the Bitcoin network will effectively do the same: users will be required to move their coins to new, quantum-secure addresses.
The quantum leap
The business mogul predicts that the transition to quantum-secure addresses will result in a massive reduction in Bitcoin's available supply.
To protect your Bitcoin, you will have to sign a transaction with your old private key to move your coins to a new quantum-secure wallet.
People who have lost their keys or who have died without passing them on cannot perform this migration.
Once the network eventually renders the old vulnerable addresses unusable (or "frozen" in a sense of safety), the coins stuck in them are effectively removed from the ledger forever.
If these coins are unable to migrate, the effective supply of Bitcoin drops to 16 million.
