# Soft Fork Related Articles

MIT Researcher Proposes New Path To Make Bitcoin Quantum-Safe

MIT Digital Currency Initiative director Neha Narula proposes a practical, staged approach to make Bitcoin quantum-safe. She argues that Bitcoin should immediately implement low-risk defenses through a soft fork, rather than waiting for full consensus on more complex issues. Her recommended solution involves deploying a post-quantum output type like P2MR (BIP 360) along with a new quantum-resistant signature opcode. This would allow users to securely migrate their funds to quantum-resistant addresses, provided they avoid address exposure. While this doesn’t resolve all challenges—such as how to handle inactive or lost coins—Narula emphasizes that immediate action reduces risk and provides time to gather data before a cryptographically relevant quantum computer emerges. She dismisses alternative proposals as impractical for broad use and acknowledges tradeoffs, such as reduced privacy efficiency, but insists progress shouldn’t be delayed by unresolved governance debates.

bitcoinist04/21 16:51

Bitcoin Braces For Quantum Shock — Inside Two Radical New Rescue Plans

The Bitcoin community is actively developing solutions to counter the future threat of quantum computers capable of breaking its current cryptography (ECDSA/Schnorr). Two primary proposals have emerged. The first, from Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Tim Ruffing, involves a "Taproot kill-switch" combined with a zk-STARK proof. This method would let users prove ownership of their coins from a vulnerable Taproot address without revealing their private keys, providing an escape hatch if a quantum-defense soft fork disables normal key-based spending. The second proposal, from Avihu Mordechai Levy, is called Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB). It uses Lamport-style one-time signatures and a new RIPEMD-160-based proof-of-work puzzle to make individual transactions quantum-safe today, without any changes to Bitcoin's base protocol. However, it is currently expensive and inefficient, costing hundreds of dollars per transaction. The debate has shifted from whether quantum is a threat to how to manage the migration. The community is split between solutions that aim to rescue the entire UTXO set and those who believe non-migrated coins should expire to preserve Bitcoin's monetary integrity.

bitcoinist04/10 14:02

BIP-110 Could Split Bitcoin In New Soft Fork Fight, Jameson Lopp Warns

bitcoinist02/25 09:18

Bitcoin Developers Kick Off Quantum-Safety Track With BIP-360

Bitcoin developers have advanced quantum-resistance efforts by merging an updated draft of BIP-360 into the official repository. The proposal introduces Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR), a new SegWit v2 output type that removes Taproot’s key-path spend—deemed most vulnerable to quantum attacks—while retaining script-tree functionality. P2MR addresses long-exposure quantum risks, where public keys remain on-chain for extended periods, but does not protect against short-exposure attacks targeting unconfirmed transactions. As a soft fork, it creates a new address type (bc1z) without affecting existing Taproot outputs. Trade-offs include larger witness sizes and reduced privacy, as all spends reveal script usage. The proposal marks a concrete step in formalizing quantum-preparedness, though future work on post-quantum signatures may be needed.

bitcoinist02/13 17:01