Eli Ben-Sasson

Bitcoin Must Overhaul for Quantum Threat, Yet Stagnates

OP_CAT Urgency: How can Bitcoin avoid the quantum iceberg? Bitcoin is like the Titanic: It’s the best, biggest, badass vessel to sail through rough financial seas. But... There’s a huge iceberg out there -- the quantum computer -- and when it hits us, it will sink Bitcoin forever. Unless… Unless Bitcoin changes course and replaces many internal parts with stuff that’s post-quantum secure. It's not impossible. This stuff exists today: things like the ZK-STARK system I co-invented, and some Lattice-based cryptography. But don’t get this wrong -- it’s a HUGE project. It involves replacing all of the hardware wallets, the core Bitcoin client code, and much more. Looking at the stagnant (and even sad) state of Bitcoin development, I’m not optimistic. It’s like the Titanic needing to do a sharp change of course, but there’s no captain and the crew is quibbling about the wattage of a lamp in the toilet room -- 8W or 16W. Hence, my call for OP_CAT urgency. To be able to work on the hard stuff, let’s get comfortable with making smaller changes that are nonetheless meaningful. Before doing a 90-degree turn, let's practice a slight turn: OP_CAT. OP_CAT is about doing a soft fork that involves returning 9 lines of code. These lines of code used to be part of Bitcoin, they were introduced by Satoshi. Yes, OP_CAT will have implications. It’ll allow for covenants, and for Bitcoin L2s (like Starknet), and a lot of shit we don’t know yet. But you know what else will have implications? Seeing a huge iceberg in the distance and not doing anything about it. I’ll tell you this with 100% guarantee: The changes you need to make to avoid the quantum computer iceberg are 100x bigger than OP_CAT. But Bitcoin needs to practice change. It needs to get comfortable with proactively evolving, and OP_CAT can be a good start. WE DON’T HAVE A LOT OF TIME. Experts give it 2-5 years till we hit the iceberg. Chains like Ethereum are entering full war mode to get prepared. I say that the Bitcoin community should do the same. Of course, we can also decide not to do OP_CAT. Nor anything else except continue to argue about OP_RETURN. Like the Titanic.