Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: Bitcoin’s race to outrun the quantum computer
by
figmentofmyass
on 01/01/2020, 23:33:07 UTC
One thing I don’t understand in the whole discussion; if RSA or ECC are compromised in the future, we can upgrade existing systems of course (and we’ll have to ... whole PKI will come tumbling down), but won’t this make dormant wallets vulnerable? How are we going to prevent someone stealing the funds from there?

yes, this is one of 2 reasons why a post-quantum fork is contentious. (the second one being that all known post-QC signatures are extremely large and therefore will bloat the blockchain)

the solution that's primarily been suggested is to destroy all ECDSA-secured outputs after a certain date (eg 5 years after the post-quantum fork occurs) to give people ample time to secure their coins while also preventing massive theft by QC.

unfortunately, this solution is extremely unpopular since many users believe it's wrong to ever destroy/steal someone else's outputs. so we're at an impasse and i dunno how it will be resolved. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4isxjr/petition_to_protect_satoshis_coins/d30we6f/