Bitcoin Developers Weigh BitMEX's Quantum-Attack 'Canary' Proposal

Bitcoin uses ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, and a quantum computer with practical capabilities could eventually derive private keys from exposed public keys, threatening older coins that have not been moved. BIP-361 would first provide a three-year window to stop sending funds to vulnerable addresses, followed two years later by a ban on spending with legacy signatures. Freezing assets held by legitimate owners, however, has raised concerns about censorship resistance.

BitMEX Research proposed a “canary fund” on April 14, 2026, using an on-chain address for which no one possesses the private key to collect a bounty. A network-wide freeze would be triggered immediately only if the address were cracked and its funds spent. The proposal sets no fixed BTC amount and recommends delaying confirmation of vulnerable transactions by 50,000 blocks, or about one year. BIP-361 was added to the BIP repository on April 13.