13 Comments
User's avatar
Polaris's avatar

Beautifully written.

As an American who owns Bitcoin, this story strikes me as the best case scenario too... in actuality, what are the chances the US government gets the vulnerable coins and sequesters them in a reserve? Slim. But the alternatives are probably far worse.

Ryan's avatar

Really enjoyed reading this, nicely done.

Jackson Sardello's avatar

Bravo Nic. Love the inclusion of the BTC Lab Leak theory at the end. Looking forward to living through the story in real life in the next 10ish years.

Nic Carter's avatar

the crazy part is i could 100% see it going like this. in fact, it's my modal outcome.

or, we get our act together and fork out the satoshi coins. but when has the bitcoin community ever done things in an orderly way?

WWW's avatar

Ha, love the twist at the end.

Dave's avatar

Banger poast for the new year.

I suspect that if quantum cracking is going to be a problem, we'll see signs:

Large wallets will break into smaller wallets (spread the risk).

Legacy financial will start making moves to secure their networks.

Probably other signs as well, which I'm hoping others will share.

Yaron Keren's avatar

All the sci-fi stories are becoming our reality.

Dave's avatar

Sci-Fi world, baby!

Bring it on! Where's my anti-gravity RV?!

Chuck Gafvert's avatar

But the Q-Day of Bitcoin will come like a thief in the night. In an instant, the elliptic curve will vanish with a roar; the private keys will be dissolved by quantum interference, and the ledger and all the coins secured therein will be laid bare.

2 Peter 3:10 QRV (Quantum Reckoning Version)

BTC Stance Memo's avatar

Great scenario-planning. The most valuable part here is stress-testing the social and legal layer around a “Q-day” shock—not just the cryptography. Even if the timeline is unknowable, this kind of narrative makes the coordination problem (migration paths, credible communication, and minimizing chaos-driven capture) feel concrete. It’s a useful reminder that tail risks are often won or lost in governance and response, not in theory.

Neal Rajdev's avatar

This post was a better way to internalize the technical post on quantum, though both are important and they work together symbiotically. Are we paying attention?

And the 15% cut is very generous, they really don't deserve more than 5% in that situation. Well done!

ss's avatar

Well done nic !

JRR's avatar

Great perspective. Thanks Brother