Countdown! The quantum crisis is approaching, the biggest hidden danger of $BTC that no one can solve, Satoshi Nakamoto's silence may be the cruelest answer.

Recently, a mainstream media outlet tried again to point to Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. This time, the target is Adam Back. Their arguments are Back’s cypherpunk background, his identity as the inventor of Hashcash, and some similarities in language habits. But in my view, this report lacks any substantive new evidence, and the reasoning process feels rushed. Back’s response to this also fits every standard script for “the accused”: building goodwill in the community while vaguely denying it.

My position is very clear: Back is not Satoshi Nakamoto. The bar for proving this identity is extremely high, and these style-and-text analyses are too easy to manipulate to count as ironclad evidence. Perhaps in the next few years, more advanced artificial intelligence could find the answer through more rigorous metrology methods—but clearly not now.

The reason I think Back isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto also comes down to another more critical, more urgent point. This reason concerns the biggest existential threat facing $BTC in the next decade: quantum computing.

If Satoshi Nakamoto is still alive, he has a responsibility that can’t be shirked—addressing the quantum security risks tied to roughly 1.7 million early $BTC. These assets are stored in the form of P2PK (pay to public key), and the public keys are completely exposed. According to the latest research from Google and Caltech, a quantum computer with only 26k quantum bits could, within days, reverse-engineer the private key.

There’s already broad consensus in the industry on the quantum-threat timeline. Google and Cloudflare have set 2029 as the final deadline for comprehensive upgrades to post-quantum cryptography. The U.S. government has also required key institutions to be ready by 2030. This means that over the next decade, nearly all $BTC holders would need to move their assets to secure addresses using new cryptographic algorithms.

But the problem is those 1.7 million $BTC—most of them are commonly believed to have been lost or abandoned, belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto and early miners. Since the keys may have been lost or the holders may be deceased, these assets can’t be actively migrated. As a result, they remain permanently exposed to quantum attacks, giving attackers unlimited time to crack them.

In theory, $BTC developers could freeze this nearly 10% of supply by permanently prohibiting spending from these old addresses through a software upgrade. But that amounts to confiscating users’ assets, severely violating the core principles of $BTC—immutability of property rights and non-tampering with the rules for money issuance—which makes it almost impossible to get approval within community culture.

So the only person who can solve this dilemma is Satoshi Nakamoto himself. He could transfer his assets to secure addresses, or—without intending to claim them—move them into a burn address, eliminating this market risk once and for all. And the entire process can remain anonymous. As early as 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto had engaged in discussions about quantum risk; he fully understands the problem.

Fifteen years have passed, and quantum computing has moved from theory to reality. If Satoshi Nakamoto is still alive, and he cares about the system he created, it’s hard to imagine he would stand by as a massive $120 billion risk keeps accumulating with indifference. Even if he can’t move these $BTC, he still has every ability to prove his identity through old files or other means and push community consensus.

His long silence points to a disturbing but more logical conclusion. We’re walking step by step into the “Day of Quantum Threat,” and we need the guidance of the creator more than ever. On the other side of those radio waves, perhaps there has already been no reply.

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