Bitcoin is finally pushing into a post-quantum era, following similar plans from Ethereum and Solana.
In the latest Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP-360), core developers have proposed a soft fork that would reduce the current long-tail risk for Taproot-based Bitcoin wallet addresses.
These addresses, officially known as Pay-to-Taproot (P2TR), are simpler than their predecessors and were introduced in 2021. However, they commit public keys on-chain whenever you transact or spend, exposing them to risk if capable quantum computers hit the market.
In response, the BIP-360 proposal aims to remove the “key-to-spend” path that exposes public keys and replace it with Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR), which keeps the data private.
Assessing vulnerable Bitcoin addresses
In late 2025, Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo said that Taproot addresses were the most exposed to quantum risk, urging users to switch to more resilient Bitcoin addresses.
In early 2024, just as U.S Spot ETFs debuted, Taproot addresses (P2TR) held nearly 54% of the market share. Given their underlying risk, this was a significant quantum risk for BTC’s supply.
However, investors have migrated to relatively quantum-resistant alternatives over the past months. Notably, Taproot addresses dropped from 54% to 22% as of early 2026.
However, these addresses are only vulnerable to “long exposure attacks.” Updating Taproot addresses does not resolve “short exposure attacks” like getting private keys from transaction pools using sophisticated quantum computers.
The developers added that the P2MR will serve as a stepping stone to a broader quantum-secure network upgrade.
“We believe it’s worth considering this path in the future and intend to offer a separate proposal for this purpose upon further research.”
Potential impact on the market
For a while now, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has been under intense FUD, with users questioning whether the core team can deliver such a quantum upgrade in time.
Interestingly, even former Ripple CTO, Joel Katz, warned,
“Bitcoin will, at some point, need a fork to be quantum proof. I guess that will be at least one case where technological changes will be necessary, or Bitcoin will collapse.”
Even Grayscale recently noted that the quantum FUD could keep BTC ETFs muted. However, if resolved, renewed demand could lift BTC to a new all-time high.
A similar outlook was echoed by Matt Hougan, CEO of digital asset manager Bitwise. He encouraged investors worried about the bear market that a relief could be likely soon, adding that,
“It takes a lot of positive data points to find a bottom, and there’s every chance there is another leg lower. But we’re at least starting to put a few points on the board.”
Final Summary
- Bitcoin has begun seeing progress in the post-quantum push with the latest BIP-360 soft-fork proposal aiming to reduce “long exposure attacks.”
- According to Bitwise, this positive update, alongside others, could help stabilize the ongoing market sell-off.
