In this video, Charles Hoskinson breaks down BIP 361: Welcome to ShitcoinLand, Bitcoin. Video by Charles Hoskinson.
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BIP-361 (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 361) is a controversial draft proposal titled "Post Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sunset." Introduced in April 2026 by Jameson Lopp and five other contributors, it proposes a three-phase plan to protect the Bitcoin network from future quantum computing attacks by phasing out vulnerable legacy addresses.
Insights Today
-Approximately 34% of the current Bitcoin supply (including ~1.1 million BTC held by Satoshi Nakamoto) is stored in legacy address types (like P2PK) where the public keys are already exposed on-chain. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could potentially use Shor's algorithm to derive the private keys from these public keys and steal the funds.
Community Reaction
The proposal has sparked intense debate within the Bitcoin community:
Proponents (e.g., Jameson Lopp): Argue it is a defensive necessity. They believe freezing dormant, vulnerable coins is better than letting a malicious actor steal them, which would crash the market and destroy network trust.
Critics: Label the plan as "authoritarian" or "confiscatory," arguing that it violates Bitcoin's core philosophy of absolute ownership and the principle that coins should remain accessible even if untouched for decades.
Alternative approaches, such as BitMEX's "Canary Fund" proposal, suggest only triggering a freeze if a quantum attack is actually demonstrated, rather than setting a hard deadline.
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