BIP-360 co-author: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post quantum era According to Cointelegraph, Ethan Heilman, co-author of the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP-360, stated that if the migration starts tomorrow, it is expected to take seven years for the Bitcoin network to fully achieve quantum resistant security, and this prediction is based on an optimistic scenario where all parties reach a consensus on the roadmap. Heilman estimates that the proposal itself will take two and a half years to complete code review and testing, followed by six months to activate, and then several years to upgrade wallets, custodians, lightning network nodes, and fund management software. In an optimistic scenario, 90% of participants will complete the update after five years of activation. The stronger the threat perception, the faster the process. He emphasized that if there is a breakthrough in quantum computing, the timetable will be significantly advanced, but overall it is still a daunting task. BIP-360 was merged to GitHub for review last week, proposing the addition of an output type called "Pay to Merkle Root" that hides the public key while retaining Taproot's upgradability and functionality, eliminating quantum vulnerability paths. This proposal is a backward compatible soft fork, and non upgraded nodes will ignore new output types. However, Heilman pointed out that BIP-360 can only defend against long-term attacks (such as targeting Satoshi Nakamoto addresses) and cannot defend against short-term attacks during transaction broadcasts, which need to be implemented by adding a quantum signature algorithm in Tapscript through soft forks. The volume of post quantum signatures is 10 to 100 times larger than the current one. If directly adopted, it will significantly reduce the processing speed on the chain. Technical solutions such as introducing witness discounts, expanding blocks, or compressing signatures through zero knowledge proofs may be needed.