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Michael Saylor reveals 'greatest risk' to Bitcoin
When I first heard the word Bitcoin (BTC) around the mid-2010s, Michael Saylor wasn’t anywhere in the picture. But now, one can't talk about Bitcoin without mentioning Saylor.
In 1989, Saylor co-founded a software company called MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR). But when he came across Bitcoin during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, he decided to turn his software enterprise into a digital asset treasury (DAT) dedicated to BTC.
A DAT acquires cryptocurrency to add to its corporate balance sheet. The way other public companies hold cash on their balance sheets, a DAT company holds crypto assets on its balance sheet.
The company continued accumulating Bitcoin over the years, rebranded to Strategy last year, and now wears the undisputed crown of the world's largest Bitcoin treasury company.
As of Jan. 25, Strategy held 712,647 Bitcoin on its balance sheet.
But now, Saylor has warned of the "greatest threat" to Bitcoin.
Saylor warns of 'ambitious opportunists advocating protocol changes'
Saylor wrote on X on Jan. 24, "The greatest risk to Bitcoin is ambitious opportunists advocating protocol changes."
The "ambitious opportunists advocating protocol changes" he referred to in his X post are Bitcoin developers who are contemplating new features in the wake of the threat of quantum computing.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that deploys cryptographic functions to encrypt all the financial details so that nobody other than the individuals sending and receiving crypto assets can access any sensitive financial data.
Though the crypto community was quite assured that no advanced technology can crack the Bitcoin code, the growing advancement in quantum computing has made them worried.
The computer the average Joe works on uses binary electrical signals to represent ones or zeros. But a quantum computer uses quantum bits called qubits, which are subatomic particles.
Optimized qubits can simultaneously represent combinations of both ones and zeros. The more qubits, the greater the potential for large-scale compute power for problem-solving. When quantum computers finally arrive, there is a risk they could encrypt Bitcoin data and make it vulnerable to attacks.
That is why Bitcoin developers are considering updates in anticipation of potential threats from quantum computing in the future.
Willy Woo, a popular on-chain analyst, recently highlighted that discussion around quantum risks has accelerated quickly among Bitcoin developers over time. Coinbase, the largest crypto trading exchange in the U.S., has recently set up an advisory board on quantum computing and blockchain to prepare for "future threats."
The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 (BIP-110) is also gaining traction. It is a soft fork that attempts to limit data input to control "spam" from non-monetary uses. As of Jan. 27, 825 out of 22,585 nodes running the Bitcoin network have supported the proposal.
In Saylor's view, developers shouldn't introduce new changes to the Bitcoin protocol and he has offered the same opinion earlier, too.
Bitcoin a result of developments
However, we can't forget that the Bitcoin that we know today is a result of developments executed over the years.
In fact, the cryptocurrency we know today came into being by developing and evolving previous ideas of cryptography and currency.
The journey from single-signature wallets to multi-signature wallets is a result of developments. The journey from a 64-character key to a simple English-language key is also a result of developments.
While one should legitimately be concerned about the introduction of bugs, one can't deny the importance of developments for the future of Bitcoin.
That is why Saylor's latest post invited sharp criticism.
Fred Krueger, a Wall Street veteran and mathematician, responded to him, "The greatest risk to Bitcoin is quantum."
Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson also disagreed with Saylor and said a crypto user expressed concern that the belief that Bitcoin's creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, would intend for it to "ossify" is inherently a risk. If the base layer can't scale, it will slowly turn into the very thing it was built to replace, he warned.
A HODL or never sell mentality removes Bitcoin's utility, he said and added.
However, not everyone disagreed with Saylor. A crypto user wrote that protocol stability is a non-negotiable feature, as any erosion of its immutability directly attacks the foundational trust it was built to provide.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $89,211.66, down 2% in the last 24 hours.
This article has been published in thestreet.com via Yahoo News.
Michael Saylor reveals 'greatest risk' to Bitcoin
When I first heard the word Bitcoin (BTC) around the mid-2010s, Michael Saylor wasn’t anywhere in the picture. But now, one can't talk about Bitcoin without mentioning Saylor. In 1989, Saylor co-founded a software company called MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR). But when he came across ...
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