Cory Fields, a Bitcoin Core developer who works at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, has floated a way to deter future quantum thieves without freezing coins, CoinDesk reported on November 5. He outlined the idea on the bitcoin-dev mailing list on Wednesday, November 4.
The worry is that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive a wallet’s secret key from its public key. Some early payments exposed public keys from the start, so coins linked to Satoshi Nakamoto are among the potential targets.
Under the proposal, an owner would create a separate quantum-safe “landmine” holding hidden proof of ownership of their vulnerable coins. A thief draining those coins would have to post matching collateral from a quantum-safe wallet, so stealing 1 BTC would require supplying another 1 BTC. Both are locked for a waiting period, such as 30 days. During that window the owner can reveal the proof, reclaim the coins and take the thief’s collateral. The thief cannot tell which holdings are trapped before committing funds.
There are limits. Landmines only protect owners who still hold their keys, so believed-lost coins are not covered. For those, Fields sketched an auction system with hidden bids. Because the blockchain cannot tell a thief from the owner, legitimate holders moving vulnerable coins would also need matching collateral.
Fields calls the ideas “thought experiments,” according to CoinDesk, and has not written enforcement rules. The proposal adds to a wider debate over whether Bitcoin should freeze vulnerable coins.
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