Ethereum

Genuine question in light of Google's Willow announcement.

We knew for years that both Bitcoin and Ethereum would eventually need to move from their current ECDSA to a post-quantum cryptographic algorithm.

My understanding is that such a move will require (i) the implementation of a new algorithm in the codebase, obviously, but also (ii) user action to migrate their tokens to the newly-generated, quantum-resistant addresses.

If my understanding is correct, does it mean that inactive wallets (deceased owner, lost passphrase, etc.) will inevitably become vulnerable at some point, or will they be prohibited from transacting past a certain date after the switch?

If it's the latter, it breaks the promise of permanence of blockchains. If the former, it means that at some point, vast amounts of tokens from dead wallets will be retrieved and will flood the market once again. Chief among them, of course, are Satoshi's own wallets.

This race to crack and dump old wallets would be catastrophic to public trust IMO

Interesting implications for burned assets as well...

Thanks for the share Sean!  There’s a tendency to forget that our Magic Internet Money, like every other asset, costs money to maintain & secure.  There are no free lunches.

At least for the burn address, it’s possible that there just isn’t any keccak256 hash that ends in only zeroes, in which case there is no private key to be found