Viewpoint: The Bitcoin community is beginning to reach a preliminary consensus on the quantum threat and is pushing forward a post-quantum upgrade roadmap

BlockBeats News, May 4th, Galaxy Digital Research Director Alex Thorn stated that as quantum computing hardware advances, the Bitcoin community is transitioning from a decentralized dispute to a preliminary consensus on quantum threat. The core direction is to gradually introduce post-quantum cryptography (PQC) through a soft fork, achieving an upgrade of the address system and long-term security.

The report pointed out that the Bitcoin signature mechanism using the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm is theoretically vulnerable to Shor's algorithm. Approximately 2 million BTC from early p2pkh addresses face the potential risk of "gather now, decrypt later" due to exposed public keys. The community tends to promote a "migration window period" mechanism, guiding users to transfer assets to new quantum-resistant addresses, and after a multi-year grace period, freeze or destroy unmigrated assets to prevent market shocks from extreme scenarios.

In addition, the consensus also includes enhancing "cryptographic agility," allowing the protocol to switch signature algorithms without disrupting the network. The current proposal tends to adopt a dual-signature mechanism running ECDSA and PQC (such as Dilithium) in parallel to ensure security redundancy and facilitate a smooth transition. The analysis believes that this approach will transform the quantum threat from a "black swan event" into a manageable technical upgrade, helping to strengthen Bitcoin's security foundation as a long-term store of value asset.