BIP-361 was formally included into the official Bitcoin repository on April 14 and obtained its identification quantity. The proposal, led by cypherpunk Jameson Lopp —co-founder of Casa—, proposes implementing, by way of a delicate fork, a mechanism that may make Bitcoin’s present cryptographic signatures invalid as of a sure date, forcing customers emigrate their funds to addresses immune to quantum computing earlier than that menace is actual.
The proposal is born in a context through which, in keeping with information from Venture Eleven, greater than 34% of all bitcoin in circulation has its public key seen on the blockchain. That features addresses related to Satoshi Nakamoto, which accumulate round 1.1 million BTC. A sufficiently highly effective quantum pc you can use these uncovered keys to derive the personal keys and switch the funds. In accordance with tutorial estimates cited within the BIP-361 proposal, this state of affairs might materialize between 2027 and 2030.
The proposal is complementary to BIP-360, revealed in February 2026, which proposes a brand new sort of handle—Pay-to-Merkle-Root—designed to cover public keys, even when making a cost. Whereas BIP-360 defines the vacation spot to which the funds should migrate, BIP-361 establishes the deadline and the implications of not doing so.
The initiative was developed alongside Christian Papathanasiou, Ian Smith, Joe Ross, Steve Vaile and Pierre-Luc Dallaire-Demers.
Three phases for an orderly migration
The proposal divides the method into three phases. In part A, which might final roughly three years after activation, solely ship funds to post-quantum addresses; Shipments to susceptible addresses could be blocked. In part B, two years after the primary part, nodes would reject any transactions that use ECDSA or Schnorr signatures (signatures presently utilized in Bitcoin), leaving funds that haven’t migrated inaccessible. A part C, nonetheless beneath investigation, would discover the potential of recovering these funds by way of a zero-knowledge proof proving possession of the unique seed phrase.
The authors acknowledge that funds from deserted or misplaced wallets—equivalent to these attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto—could be completely inaccessible after Part B. The proposal cites Satoshi himself to border this: Cash with out an energetic proprietor that don’t migrate would merely cease circulatingdecreasing the obtainable provide.
The BIP-361 is in draft standing and doesn’t have an activation date. Like several change to the Bitcoin protocol, it requires broad consensus amongst builders, miners, exchanges, and custodians earlier than shifting ahead. Its addition to the repository marks the start of the technical debate, not its conclusion.
