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Bitcoin Developers Bring BIP 360 Soft Fork For Quantum Proofing
BIP 360 soft fork will replace a legacy feature in Bitcoin called Pay to Taproot with a new one called Pay to Merkle Root.
- Bitcoin contributors Hunter Beast, Ethan Heilman, and Isabel Foxen Duke propose the BIP 360 soft fork, which is the first step towards making Bitcoin quantum-proof.
- The fork will replace a legacy feature called Pay to Taproot with a new one called Pay to Merkle Root, essentially removing a quantum vulnerability, which allows quantum computers to decode public keys.
- Taproot addresses are quantum vulnerable but are critical in supporting Bitcoin scalability through the Lightning Network.
- It will be interesting to see how the Lightning Network compatibility is dealt with after the upgrade.
Must Read for Beginners: What are Public Keys?
What is BIP 360?
BIP 360 is Bitcoin’s first move towards creating a quantum-proof network. The proposal is basically to implement a soft fork that will remove a legacy taproot feature called Pay to Taproot. This feature will be removed by a newer feature called Pay to Merkle Root.
The Pay to Merkle Root will follow an alternative path to creating a transaction output, removing a quantum-vulnerable one.
The taproot upgrade introduced taproot addresses to Bitcoin and has become a core necessity because it supports critical features like the Lightning Network, Bit Virtual Machine, and Ark.
The proposal was submitted by Bitcoin Core contributors Hunter Beast, Ethan Heilman, and Isabel Foxen Duke.
What is a Soft Fork?
A soft fork is a major change to a blockchain in which the newer version remains compatible with the older version of the chain. It is different than a hard fork where the older version is incompatible with the newer one.
Basically, it is a major upgrade.
For example, Ripple (XRP) is a hard fork of Bitcoin, and it resulted in the creation of a new non-compatible blockchain.
What was the Taproot Upgrade in Bitcoin?
The Taproot Upgrade to Bitcoin was released on November 14, 2021, to add features such as improved privacy, increased efficiency, and smart contracts.
It consisted of the following components:
- BIP 340 implemented Schnorr Signatures, a more secure signing protocol that improved on ECDSA by allowing key aggregation, reducing transaction size, and lowering fees.
- BIP 341 introduced Merkelized Alternative Script Trees, a novel Merkle Tree, which made complex transactions, such as smart contracts, similar to ordinary Bitcoin Transactions.
- BIP 342 introduced Tapscript, which improved scripting to allow the usage of Schnorr Signatures.
A result of the upgrade was seen with the creation of Bitcoin Ordinals, which allowed the creation of code, audio, video, images, and applications (like games) on the Bitcoin Blockchain.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does BIP stand for?
BIP in Bitcoin stands for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal.
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