Steal Bitcoin, Lose Your Own BTC? Developer Floats Three Defenses Against Quantum Attacks

Could Bitcoin trap quantum hackers? Cory Fields proposes three experimental mechanisms that could make stealing vulnerable BTC financially costly. A Bitcoin developer has suggested several ways to make quantum attackers lose their own BTC if they try to steal coins that remain vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks. The concept was shared by Cory Fields, who works on Bitcoin software at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, in a post to the Bitcoin development mailing list. The proposals explore how BTC could discourage future quantum-enabled theft through financial incentives, time-locks, and auction-based mechanisms. Fields presented three ideas as “thought experiments,” rather than finalized proposals, while stating that implementing them through a soft fork could be possible. Trap for Crypto Thieves The first concept, called Quantum Landmines, would allow Bitcoin holders to secretly attach a cryptographic proof to a small quantum-safe output before quantum computers become capable of breaking existing cryptography. If an attacker later steals a vulnerable Bitcoin output, new post-quantum spending rules would require the stolen coins to be moved alongside an equivalent amou...