Bitcoin could soon sacrifice part of his corners to survive in the quantum era. Faced with the growing threat of quantum computers, a radical plan is on the table: definitively burn thousands of bitcoins. This controversial project, called Qramp (“Quantum-Résistant Address Migration Protocol”), offers a hard fork To secure the network at the cost of partial destruction of unmmal BTCs. The Bitcoin community must now choose between immediate security and absolute respect for the original principles of cryptocurrency.
A radical plan against quantum threat
The QRAMP BIP, designed by the developer Agustin Cruz, requires forced migration to addresses resistant to quantum computers.
Concretely, after activation of the protocol, the bitcoins left on vulnerable addresses would become unusable, thus equivalent to destruction.
Qramp provides a limited transition period, after which any attempted transaction from an old address would be rejected.
The objective is clear: to prevent a future quantum computer from breaking the ECDSA algorithm, currently used to secure Bitcoin.
If it happened, thousands of addresses could be emptied in a few moments. For its supporters, this extreme measure is essential.
But the community, deeply attached to the individual freedom and the immutocol immutation, remains divided.
Quantum computers use the principles of quantum physics to carry out calculations out of reach of traditional computers.
In theory, such a machine could easily find a private key from an exposed public key, thus emptying entire wallets in a few minutes.
But the reality is different. If Google has announced that it has reached “quantum supremacy” in 2019, current capacities remain insufficient to threaten Bitcoin.
According to Expertsa computer would take at least 10 million qubits to effectively break ECDSA. To date, IBM, the leader of the sector, has only one machine at 433 qubits. However, this distant threat pushes some to act now.
Bitcoin: irreversible and controversial destruction
If the QRAMP project is adopted, users will have to act quickly on pain of permanently losing their BTC.
The most affected would be dormant portfolios or belonging to negligent, missing or deceased users. This massive destruction would potentially affect billions of dollars in bitcoins, an unacceptable situation for many.
The community also fears the technical and political risks of such hard forklikely to cause a fragmentation similar to that observed with Bitcoin Cash in 2017. The unit of the network, its main force, could be compromised.
For BIP defendersthe security emergency prevails: it is better to burn part of the bitcoins rather than risk a complete collapse.
Opponents believe, on the contrary, that this choice violates the fundamental principle of decentralization.
An alternative would be to accelerate the adoption of new post-quantic cryptographic solutions, such as the signatures of reinforced lamport or Schnorr, without touching the monetary offer. But a consensus on these options remains difficult to reach.
The BIP Qramp today requires Bitcoin to choose: sacrifice the immutability of the network or risk losing everything in the face of the inevitable quantum technological advance. An existential dilemma for the future of the king of cryptocurrencies. Discover, moreover, the strategic lever of the global adoption of Bitcoin.
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