Cory Fields proposes quantum landmines to deter Bitcoin theft

Bitcoin Core developer Cory Fields has proposed “quantum landmines”—outputs that become spendable only after a set time, forcing a quantum attacker to reveal its key before the coins can be moved—as an economic deterrent against theft of dormant BTC. The idea targets the long-term risk that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive private keys for early P2WPKH and P2PK outputs, letting an attacker sweep them before the legitimate owner notices. Fields frames the mechanism as an economic disincentive rather than a cryptographic upgrade, avoiding a disruptive protocol change while pressuring holders of old coins to migrate. The proposal remains conceptual and has no activation timeline; the next thing to watch is whether it gains traction among Core developers and wallet providers as a complement to, or substitute for, post-quantum signature schemes.