Bitcoin Developer Paul Sztorc Announces Hard Fork Called eCash to Reallocate Satoshi's 1.1M BTC

Apr 25, 2026

Bitcoin developer Paul Sztorc, founder and CEO of LayerTwo Labs, announced a hard fork called eCash scheduled for August 2025 that would create a competing layer-1 blockchain where users receive matching balances to their Bitcoin holdings. Sztorc's initial plan involved manually reassigning fewer than half of Satoshi Nakamoto's 1.1 million BTC (worth $85.12 billion) to investors before launch, which he acknowledged would be controversial but necessary for momentum. Critic Tomer Strolight condemned the reallocation as equivalent to seizing Satoshi's coins as an insider pre-mine, prompting Sztorc to release a second version without the seizure. The controversy intersects with a separate quantum threat proposal by Jameson Lopp and others that would limit or block transactions from wallets vulnerable to quantum attacks, raising concerns about Satoshi's untouched reserve.

Paul Sztorc's eCash Hard Fork and Satoshi's Bitcoin Reallocation Plan

▪Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin address holds 1.09 million BTC worth $85.12 billion at current market rates.
▪Paul Sztorc announced a Bitcoin hard fork called eCash that will go live in August 2025.
▪Satoshi Nakamoto has 1.1 million coins in the patoshi mining pattern.
▪Users of the eCash hard fork will receive matching balances on the new chain corresponding to their Bitcoin holdings.
▪Paul Sztorc plans to manually reassign fewer than half of Satoshi's 1.1 million coins to investors before the August 2025 fork date.
▪Paul Sztorc is the founder and CEO of LayerTwo Labs.
▪Paul Sztorc acknowledged the eCash reallocation plan would be controversial but said it was necessary to build momentum prior to launch.

Community Backlash and Controversy Over Seizing Satoshi's Coins

▪Paul Sztorc released a second version of the eCash fork that does not seize Satoshi's coins.
▪Tomer Strolight criticized Paul Sztorc's plan as equivalent to seizing Satoshi's coins as an insider pre-mine.

Quantum Computing Threat Proposal and Concerns About Old Bitcoin Wallets

▪Jameson Lopp stated he does not like the quantum threat proposal but wrote it because he likes the alternative even less.
▪Jameson Lopp is one of the authors of the quantum threat proposal for Bitcoin.
▪The quantum threat proposal has created concern about Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin reserve, which has been untouched for many years.
▪A group of programmers and quantum computing specialists proposed protecting Bitcoin wallets that might be susceptible to quantum attacks.

Perspective of Paul Sztorc

▪Paul Sztorc released a second version of the eCash fork in response to criticism of the original reallocation plan.
▪Paul Sztorc believes reallocating Satoshi Nakamoto's coins is necessary to build momentum for the eCash hard fork prior to launch.

Perspective of Tomer Strolight

▪Tomer Strolight views Paul Sztorc's eCash reallocation plan as an illegitimate seizure of assets rather than a legitimate fork.
▪Tomer Strolight argues that reallocating Satoshi's coins in the eCash fork constitutes an insider pre-mine scheme.