Overview
- BitMEX Research this week proposed a canary scheme that would trigger restrictions on legacy wallets only if a quantum-capable attacker spends from a special address that pays a public bounty.
- Under the canary design, users can fund and withdraw from the bounty pool, and a built-in safety window would delay spending from vulnerable addresses to make quiet theft harder if the canary fires.
- BIP-361, which co-author Jameson Lopp updated Tuesday in Bitcoin’s official repository, sets a preset path that blocks sending to legacy addresses after about three years and then rejects legacy signatures roughly two years later.
- The draft also sketches a possible rescue using zero-knowledge proofs so late movers could prove seed ownership, though it depends on BIP-360’s pay-to-Merkle-root format and remains unproven at scale.
- Supporters say tighter quantum timelines and about 6.7 million BTC with exposed public keys justify action, while critics call forced freezes confiscation and warn of governance risks that could even split the chain.