A draft Bitcoin Enchancment Proposal authored by Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp and 5 collaborators units out probably the most forceful roadmap but for hardening the community in opposition to quantum computing. Titled “Put up-Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sundown,” the proposal was printed on GitHub on 14 July and requires a phased retirement of all outputs protected by right this moment’s ECDSA and Schnorr signatures. The authors body the transfer as a crucial pre-emptive strike: “It turns quantum safety into a non-public incentive — fail to improve and you’ll definitely lose entry to your funds.”
Plan To Safe Bitcoin From Quantum Risk
As a result of each public key that seems on-chain can, in precept, have its corresponding personal key recovered by a sufficiently highly effective quantum pc, the proposal warns that “roughly 25 % of all bitcoin have revealed a public key on-chain; these UTXOs might be stolen with ample quantum energy.” That slice contains many early P2PK outputs, amongst them the roughly a million BTC broadly believed to be managed by Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
The authors word that NIST finalised three production-grade post-quantum signature algorithms in 2024 and that tutorial roadmaps now place a “cryptographically-relevant” quantum pc as early as 2027-2030. On the similar time, quantum factoring algorithms “are bettering as much as 20×,” quickly shrinking Bitcoin’s security margin.To neutralise the menace, the draft prescribes a soft-fork sequence tied to the already-proposed P2QRH post-quantum output kind (outlined in BIP-360):
Section A begins three years after P2QRH goes stay and “disallows sending of any funds to quantum-vulnerable addresses,” forcing new cash towards quantum-safe scripts.
Section B follows two years later, on a pre-announced flag day, when “nodes reject transactions that depend on ECDSA/Schnorr keys,” rendering legacy outputs unspendable.
Section C is non-compulsory and, pending additional analysis, might allow homeowners who missed the deadline to get better funds with a zero-knowledge proof of possession of their BIP-39 seed.
The doc’s rationale is specific: “A profitable quantum assault on Bitcoin would end in vital financial disruption and injury throughout the whole ecosystem.” By imposing a identified deadline, the authors hope to beat what they describe as “improve inertia” amongst wallets, exchanges and custodians that traditionally stretches protocol roll-outs over a few years.
Every stakeholder cohort is obtainable a blunt calculus. Miners danger producing “invalid blocks” after Section B if they don’t improve, however within the interim can anticipate heavier blocks and better charges from the bigger post-quantum signatures. Institutional holders face potential fiduciary legal responsibility ought to they ignore the migration timetable, whereas exchanges confront the prospect of in a single day insolvency if quantum attackers drain custodial scorching wallets. For particular person customers, the sundown date converts an summary, far-off menace into a tough deadline.
A notable corollary is that cash deserted in quantum-vulnerable scripts would grow to be completely frozen, echoing Satoshi’s early statement that “misplaced cash solely make everybody else’s cash price barely extra.” The proposal inverts that logic for quantum-recovered cash, calling them “a theft from everybody.”
The BIP stays a draft and has but to obtain a quantity or taproot-style activation path, however it’s already shaping what’s more likely to grow to be a contentious debate over backward compatibility and the therapy of dormant balances. If adopted, the migration would dwarf SegWit and Taproot in each logistical complexity and financial stakes, instantly affecting an estimated quarter of the 19.7 million BTC in existence.
For now, the authors have thrown down a transparent gauntlet: both the ecosystem coordinates on a proactive timeline, or it faces the prospect of responding to an emergency solely after the primary quantum theft has occurred.
At press time, BTC traded at $118,623.
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