Quantum resistant signature schemes exist and could be soft-forked into #Bitcoin for people who want to upgrade.
Old, unupgraded and lost coins may become bounties for future quantum pirates to claim as booty.
Discussion
Thanks Jimbo đ¤
The only existential threat to #Bitcoin that Iâve been able to come up with is a zero-day fast crack of ECDSA signatures. If this happened, then there may not be time to soft-fork in a quantum-resistant signature scheme. Pirates would be able to spend a great deal of the existing coin, violating the âyour keys, your coinsâ sacred rule.
A slow crack of ECDSA is more likely, where itâs possible but extremely costly (and slow) at first, but then speeds up over time. In this scenario, weâd expect to see Satoshiâs stash start to move first, since these are the largest bounties. That would be the bellwether signaling that we should soft-fork in an alternative signature scheme and start to migrate coins over.
Yeah, by making the upgrade opt-in, Bitcoiners can have the choice to enhance the security of their transactions using quantum-resistant signatures⌠Anyway, Quantum computers could compromise the security of coins using vulnerable signatures, emphasizing the need for users to upgrade & secure their holdings against potential threatsâŚ