Opinion: The Bitcoin community is forming a preliminary consensus on the quantum threat and is promoting a roadmap for quantum-resistant upgrades.

ME News, May 4 (UTC+8): Galaxy Digital Research Director Alex Thorn said that as quantum computing hardware advances accelerates, the Bitcoin community is shifting from scattered debates to forming an initial consensus on quantum threats. The core direction is to gradually introduce post-quantum cryptography (PQC) via soft forks, enabling address system upgrades and long-term security assurance.

The report points out that Bitcoin’s current signature mechanism, which uses the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, could theoretically be broken by Shor’s algorithm. Around 2 million BTC in early p2pkh addresses have had their public keys exposed, facing a potential “collect first, decrypt later” risk. The community tends to push for a “migration window” mechanism, guiding users to transfer their assets to new quantum-resistant addresses, and after a multi-year grace period, freezing or destroying any assets that have not been migrated, to prevent a large-scale sell-off from hitting the market in extreme cases.

The consensus also includes enhancing “cryptographic agility,” meaning the protocol can switch signature algorithms without interrupting the network. The current plan leans toward a dual-signature mechanism that runs ECDSA and PQC in parallel (such as Dilithium), ensuring security redundancy while enabling a smooth transition. Analysts believe this route transforms quantum threats from a “black swan event” into a manageable technical upgrade, helping to strengthen Bitcoin’s security foundation as a long-term store of value. (Source: ChainCatcher)