title: Jameson Lopp Argues Against Allowing Quantum Recovery of Lost BTC

input: Jameson Lopp, the chief security officer at Bitcoin (BTC) custody company Casa, recently argued against allowing quantum recovery of lost BTC and said that burning these coins to protect the integrity of the protocol was the preferable option.

Jameson Lopp, the chief security officer at Bitcoin (BTC) custody company Casa, has argued against allowing quantum recovery of lost BTC and said that burning these coins to protect the integrity of the protocol was the preferable option.

According to Lopp, allowing individuals or institutions with quantum computers to recover lost coins violates the Bitcoin network's properties of censorship resistance, transaction immutability, and conservatism.

"If someone loses BTC due to an error in inputting the address, it is preferable to burn those coins and prevent anyone—not even someone with a quantum computer—from accessing them," argued Lopp.

According to the crypto executive, allowing quantum recovery is not good for anyone.

"It is hard to see a bright side to that scenario. Perhaps someone is indifferent to the coins being lost but would prefer them to be recovered, or maybe someone else would gain more utility from the coins being recovered," wrote Lopp.

According to the executive, quantum recovery can only harm the security of the Bitcoin network.

The threat posed by quantum computers to Bitcoin continues to be hotly debated, with some arguing that the threat to modern encryption is still decades away, others arguing that quantum computers will never be practical, and some warning that the threat is imminent.

Jameson Lopp discussing the risks posed by quantum computers at the Future of Bitcoin Conference in 2024.output: