What about the risk of changing the protocol under deception?

I agree the risk is high, but it cuts both ways. The only coherent response is to verify the threat, not assume it. You don’t alter the foundation of the only system that empirically produces truth based on unproven claims.

Are you willing to accept that there may be a second best? That a centralized quantum machine is more fundamental than a decentralized system that already computes irreversible, non-contradictory state in public?

Bitcoin produces time and truth every ten minutes. It does so openly, auditable by anyone, grounded in energy. And yet we are being asked to discount that empiricism in favor of a theoretical machine that has never demonstrated the ability to break it. Not once, not in practice, not at scale. A theory based on an assumed ontology of time Bitcoin empirically refutes.

How is that not a complete inversion of science?

Where is the proof?
Where is the execution?
Where is the system that has actually crossed the boundary from theory into irreversible state?
Why is Bitcoin not proof of quantized time?

Whose definition of a “quantum computer” are you even using?

Is it coming from the same institutions that told you fiat currency is money? The same ones that dismissed Bitcoin until they couldn’t ignore it? And now we’re expected to accept their models, their timelines, and their threats without verification?

Why?

At what point do we stop trusting and start verifying?

If you’re willing to change Bitcoin without proof, then you’re not defending it; you’re conceding it.