Quantum threat: let's not turn Bitcoin into an altcoin

An opinion essay by Bitcoin Core contributor Antoine Poinsot on how bitcoin should respond to the quantum threat. Its central worry is that the wrong response could itself damage bitcoin: if the economy coordinated to pre-emptively freeze exposed coins, that would normalize confiscation and undercut the property-rights guarantee that, in the author's view, gives bitcoin its value over alternatives.

Poinsot frames migration as a collective-action dilemma — everyone benefits if everyone upgrades, but each individual's incentive to upgrade early is weak — and argues any migration must happen during the period of uncertainty, before a quantum computer is known to be imminent, because by then it would be too late to move the long tail of inactive users. He favors opt-in, exclusively-post-quantum output types over network-wide intervention. It is a clearly argued position piece, not a neutral survey.