Over the past week, a “coin-dumping” topic has continued to simmer: should 5.6 million bitcoins from the Satoshi era that have not moved for a decade be frozen?

The trigger was a warning from James Lopp, co-founder of Casa: these coins are still kept in unupgraded, old wallets, and future quantum computers may be able to crack them. Rather than having them stolen by hackers, it might be better to freeze them directly at the protocol level—after all, they’re now worth about $440 billion.

As soon as the proposal was raised, the entire internet erupted. OP NET founder made a pointed remark: no matter the motive, freezing is tantamount to declaring that “Bitcoin ownership can be interfered with,” which would upend the fundamental expectation of “absolute ownership.” Once that expectation is shaken, institutions may be forced to offload their holdings because the investment logic no longer holds.

The mining community also weighed in. SazMining CEO believes the issue should be addressed with better tools and voluntary migration, not protocol confiscation. Lightning Ventures put it more bluntly: it looks practical, but in fact it undermines the foundation of Bitcoin’s “immutability and permissionlessness.”

The debate is still ongoing. Even though the chances of execution are extremely slim, the discussion itself has already pierced a layer of psychological barrier: it turns out that some “taboos” can now be discussed openly. $BTC $GT $ETH