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Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Merits 1 from 1 user
Re: Bitcoin must upgrade or fall victim to quantum computing in 5 years
by
d5000
on 13/07/2025, 22:58:42 UTC
⭐ Merited by Cricktor (1)
I've looked a bit into the July Bitcoin Optech newsletter and there's a lot of things going on lately.

For example, there's a proposal (with code) to implement Winternitz signatures (which are quantum resistant) with OP_CAT. OP_CAT has still not been added to the Bitcoin code, but it's a relatively popular feature request and thus it could be added in one of the next versions. That could mean that quantum resistance would be achieved faster than expected.

Tadge Dryja (one of the LN inventors) has also proposed a scheme to prevent quantum hackers from stealing coins by double spending transactions where public keys were revealed. It would be a soft fork and it seems while it needs a quantum resistant algorithm, it could be posted in an OP_RETURN output. That would be huge: If this works and gets implemented, it looks almost like the missing part in the puzzle for strategies you can use already today to secure your coins from future QC attacks. Basically if you don't reuse addresses and use this strategy you would not be vulnerable to any quantum computer attacks at all even in a distant future, with the exception of Grover's algorithm (which is much more far away than a Shor algorithm ECDSA exploit and if it really becomes an issue, it could be basically repelled using SHA512 instead of SHA256).

That there are so many options discussed is very healthy and confirms my impression that the devs are correct in not implementing something like BIP360 "in a hurry".