The Quantum Threat to Bitcoin: A Recovery Proposal

Follow up to Bitcoin’s Civil War is Coming, and the Enemy Isn't Human:

When quantum computers break ECDSA (~2030-2035 with 2000+ logical qubits), Bitcoin faces immediate catastrophe. Every address becomes spendable by attackers. Here's how to salvage the network:

The Migration Protocol:

1. Emergency freeze: Soft fork to halt all pre-quantum addresses within 24 hours of credible quantum threat

2. Quantum-secure migration: New transaction type allowing one-time movement from frozen addresses to post-quantum addresses

The Zero-Knowledge Solution:

BIP39 seeds enable ownership proof even after ECDSA breaks. While quantum computers can extract private keys from public keys, they cannot reverse the one-way hash chain from seed→private key.

Technical Implementation

• Prove knowledge of seed S that generates address A via:

  • PBKDF2(S) → master seed (2048 SHA-512 rounds)

  • BIP32 derivation → private key k

  • k → observed public address

• Use quantum-resistant STARK proofs (~500KB size)

• Proof generation: 2-6 hours on consumer hardware

• Verification: <100ms

Coverage and Gaps

• ~60% of Bitcoin uses BIP39-compatible wallets

• ~15% in exchange/custodial systems (need custom proofs)

• ~25% in legacy/lost addresses (unrecoverable)

The AGI Accelerant

If practical quantum computing arrives, it will likely be because of AGI. This transforms implementation from "years of development" to "weeks of automated circuit optimization."