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You’re confusing a core principle of bitcoin for the way the core principle was written down. It’s (obviously) a core principle of Bitcoin that coins never be frozen or stolen by any action aside from a mistake by their owners. However, that’s not the question we face if a CRQC becomes reality. The coins *will* be stolen or frozen, there is no other option [1]. In the face of that, you either pick that they be stolen by some QC startup, or you pick that they be frozen by fork. Also… [1] There is actually one other option. If the keys for the coins were created with a seedphrase-based wallet, we can allow them to be recovered by their owners, but *only* if we freeze vulnerable spend modes!

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Freezing other people’s bitcoins is wrong, no matter what the motivation. In my view there is only one way to preserve Bitcoin’s censorship‑resistance without violating that principle: Introduce quantum‑resistant addresses - By adding a new address format that is provably secure against any foreseeable quantum attack, users who consider quantum computers a real threat can voluntarily move their funds to those addresses. The choice remains entirely in the hands of the coin holder. If a holder decides not to migrate —whether because they have lost the private‑key, because they distrust the new format, or for any other personal reason — then they accept the associated risk. The potential loss is a direct consequence of their own decision, not of an imposed freeze. Should quantum computing enable the reactivation of old Bitcoin addresses, their influx may cause a crash in the price, but the price can recover. A temporary price-correction is not a reason to compromise the protocol’s core guarantees. Preserving Bitcoin’s immutable, permission‑less nature must remain the highest priority.