Overview
- BIP-361, published Tuesday in Bitcoin’s proposal repository, lays out a three-phase shift that first blocks new deposits to legacy addresses and later rejects their signatures at the consensus level.
- The draft relies on BIP-360’s new post-quantum output type and remains without any activation timeline.
- Researchers and the proposal cite about one-third of Bitcoin—roughly 6.7 to 6.9 million BTC—with public keys exposed on-chain, which a future quantum computer could use to derive private keys.
- Backlash was swift from users who called a forced freeze confiscation, while Blockstream CEO Adam Back urged optional upgrades and said his team is trialing quantum-resistant signatures on the Liquid sidechain.
- Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson argued the plan would need a hard fork and said about 1.7 million pre‑2013 coins, including Satoshi‑era holdings, could not use the proposed zero‑knowledge recovery, as others floated canary-triggered freezes as an alternative.