# Why Bitcoin Mining Is Unfair and the Quantum Computer Problem By [Bitcoinu](https://paragraph.com/@bitcoinu) · 2025-03-31 --- Bitcoin is mined by about 5-10 people who control 25% of the total supply. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the first two years of Bitcoin (2009-2010), 25% of the total supply, or 5.25 million BTC, was mined. How many people mined these 5.25 million BTC? Of course, the exact number is unknown because one person might have used multiple mining addresses. However, it is estimated that the developer Satoshi Nakamoto mined 1.1 million BTC during these two years, which is 1/5 of the mining volume at the time. At that time, mining was done using CPUs, i.e., regular home PCs, so Satoshi was no exception. If other miners were using the same computational power as Satoshi during that period, it would mean there were only about 5 miners, including Satoshi. In reality, since Satoshi was likely mining the longest from the start, other participants likely joined later, so their mining amounts would have been smaller. Thus, the number of miners could be a bit higher. Still, it seems natural to assume that the majority of the 25% was distributed among about 5-10 people in the early stages. Perhaps, only a small group of people involved in Bitcoin’s development were mining it? Is Bitcoin Mining Fair? ----------------------- Bitcoin supporters often argue, "Bitcoin has no ICO, no VC, no private sales. Therefore, it’s fair." But can it really be considered fair to distribute 25% of the total assets to just 5-10 people in the beginning? Is it fair because "anyone could have participated if they knew about it"? On the other hand, what’s the difference between "mining when no one knew about it" and a pre-mined private distribution? For example, Ethereum distributed only 5% to the development team. (Other allocations were 50% to ICO, 40% to mining, and 5% to the Ethereum Foundation, a nonprofit organization.) Ethereum’s ICO raised awareness through marketing efforts, and the ICO was sold under highly publicized conditions. Therefore, the other 95% was a public distribution. Isn't Ethereum’s initial distribution much fairer than Bitcoin’s? ### Ultimately, Is It Fair? There’s an opinion that most of the 25% of BTC mined in the early stages has become ‘dead coins’. Early miners didn’t think Bitcoin would ever have value, so they neglected to manage the private keys, resulting in many of them becoming "dead coins" that no one can access. In fact, it's estimated that about 3 million BTC have never been transferred since they were mined, suggesting that either the private keys were lost or the owners are deceased, rendering these coins inaccessible. Thus, much of the BTC initially mined and distributed is effectively burned (frozen), meaning that this unfairness has, in effect, been neutralized. ### The Quantum Computer Threat However, with the advent of quantum computers, this situation could change drastically. Quantum computers have made significant advances in recent years, and some researchers believe that "within the next 10 years, quantum computers will be able to break the elliptic curve cryptography used by Bitcoin." If this encryption is broken, the private keys of two types of addresses are not safe: 1. Addresses that have ever been used for transactions 2. Addresses used in the early days Since the "public keys" of these addresses are already available, quantum computers can decode the private keys from the public keys. Decrypting the private keys means acquiring the assets associated with those addresses. This means that the roughly 3 million BTC mined early on could be stolen by quantum computers. Worse, there’s no way to prevent this. For BTC that can still be moved by their owners, they can be transferred to new addresses, and quantum-resistant cryptography can be used for future transactions to prevent theft by quantum computers. However, for dead coins with no owner, there is no way to protect them. There have been proposals to update the Bitcoin network to freeze dead coins, making them inaccessible even to quantum computers.But this is impossible with a soft fork. A hard fork is required. In other words, like Bitcoin Cash (BCH), a new coin would need to be created, and the frozen coins would be transferred to that coin. It’s impossible to freeze specific coins in the existing Bitcoin network. Therefore, about 3 million BTC, or 15% of Bitcoin’s total supply, will inevitably be stolen by quantum computers. Bitcoinu’s Mining Is Decentralized ---------------------------------- The root problem lies in the fact that, in the early stages, Bitcoin mining wasn’t widely recognized, and a small number of people concentrated most of the mining activity. To solve this issue, Bitcoinu has implemented a method called Proof of Marketing. Bitcoinu is a coin implemented on Ethereum, and its security is protected by Ethereum, so it doesn’t require cryptographic calculations for security. Thus, in Bitcoinu’s mining process, instead of cryptographic calculations, miners are required to engage in marketing on X. This allows Bitcoinu to expand awareness much faster, gather miners quickly, and achieve a far more decentralized mining process compared to Bitcoin. Of course, there is a drawback of slightly depending on the centralized platform X, but in the end, the most important thing is whether the initial distribution becomes decentralized. Additionally, Ethereum plans to upgrade its quantum resistance within the next 5 years, making it a fully protected chain against quantum computers. Therefore, Bitcoinu has completely solved this issue that Bitcoin faces. --- *Originally published on [Bitcoinu](https://paragraph.com/@bitcoinu/why-bitcoin-mining-is-unfair-and-the-quantum-computer-problem)*