Bitcoin developers have proposed BIP-361 to counter potential future quantum attack risks.

According to Huoxun Finance, Jameson Loop, a Bitcoin contributor, and other cryptographers have proposed an initiative: if Bitcoin holders do not migrate their tokens to a new quantum-resistant address, their tokens may be permanently frozen by the network—the holders technically still own the tokens but lose the ability to transfer them. This initiative corresponds to Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP-361, which was updated to the official Bitcoin Proposal Library on Tuesday, titled "Post-Quantum Migration and Old Signature Elimination." BIP-361 builds on BIP-360, proposed in February: BIP-360 was a soft fork (network upgrade) designed to enable a new transaction type called "Payments to Merklegen (P2MR)"—a method that borrows from the Bitcoin Taproot (P2TR) framework but removes key-based spending paths, thus eliminating elements considered to pose a quantum-era risk. BIP-361 divides the migration into three phases: - **Phase A**: Launched 3 years after activation, sending new Bitcoins to old, quantum-vulnerable addresses is prohibited. Holders can withdraw from these addresses but cannot receive new coins; - **Phase B**: Launched 5 years after activation, old signatures (ECDSA and Schnorr) become completely invalid. The network will reject any attempt to withdraw coins from quantum-vulnerable wallets, effectively freezing the tokens; - **Phase C**: A rescue plan still under research. Holders of frozen wallets can prove ownership through zero-knowledge proofs (methods that prove knowledge of a secret without revealing the secret itself). If successful, they can recover the tokens frozen in Phase B.