Bitcoin developers propose BIP-361 to counter future potential quantum attack risks

Odaily Jameson Loop, one of the Bitcoin contributors, along with other cryptographers, has proposed an initiative that could force Bitcoin holders to migrate their tokens to new quantum-resistant addresses, otherwise their tokens will be permanently frozen by the network itself. In this scenario, holders technically still "own" the coins but will lose the ability to transfer them. This is known as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP-361 and was updated on Tuesday in Bitcoin's official proposal repository under the title "Post-Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Deprecation".

BIP-361 builds upon the BIP-360 proposal introduced in February. BIP-360 introduced a soft fork (a network upgrade) designed to enable a new transaction type called "Pay-to-Merkle-Root" (P2MR). This method draws from Bitcoin's Taproot (P2TR) framework but removes the key-based spending path, thereby eliminating an element widely considered to be at risk in the quantum era.

The BIP-361 proposal divides the migration into three phases. Phase A begins three years after activation, prohibiting anyone from sending new Bitcoin to legacy, quantum-vulnerable addresses. You can still spend from these addresses but cannot receive any coins.

Phase B begins five years after activation, rendering legacy signatures (ECDSA and Schnorr) completely invalid. The network will reject any attempts to spend coins from quantum-vulnerable wallets. Essentially, your coins will be frozen.

Finally, Phase C is a still-under-research rescue plan: holders of frozen wallets may potentially prove ownership through zero-knowledge proofs (a method of proving knowledge of a secret without revealing the secret itself). If successful, coins frozen in Phase B can be recovered. (CoinDesk)