Post-Quantum Bitcoin Signatures (+ their tradeoffs) | ETHAN HEILMAN & JONAS NICK
Bitcoin Rails | Isabel Foxen DukeShow Notes
According to BIP 360 co-author, Ethan Heilman, Bitcoin needs a minimum of two soft forks to become quantum resistant: P2MR (or an output type that can safely execute PQ signatures) + a post-quantum checksig (signature scheme).
Ethan and the BIP 360 team (including myself and Hunter Beast) introduced the P2MR part via a BIP 360 update late last year—but the question remains, what’s the most appropriate PQ signature scheme for Bitcoin?
They all have substantive tradeoffs, but hash-based signatures seem to be leading technical discourse—likely due to recent optimizations by Jonas Nick and the broader Blockstream research team.
It was an honor to sit down with both of these men - arguably the two most influential and productive cryptographers in Bitcoin quantum mitigation right now - for an in-depth review of the leading PQ signature schemes and a temperature check on Bitcoin’s post-quantum planning process.
TBH, if you want to skip the noise and jump straight to the signal on quantum, this is the interview to watch.
In this episode, we discuss:
What needs to happen at the soft fork, infra and mitigation levels to fully quantum-harden Bitcoin
Recent updates to BIP 360 + breakdown of the leading hash-based signatures schemes for Bitcoin (SHRINCS + SHRIMPS)
Why we may actually get consensus around a stateful scheme for Bitcoin
Comparisons of hash-based signatures vs Lattice and Isogeny-based schemes
Assessing the risks of both waiting too long, and acting too fast (and why quantum is a better threat to be facing than a potential classical attack)
This episode of Bitcoin Rails is brought to you by my NEW sponsors:
LayerTwo Labs — developing research, software and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301)
Hashi on Sui Network — a primitive for executing Bitcoin Defi transactions, with having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity
BitBox — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount.
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