[CoinDesk] Bitcoin developer proposes ‘landmines’ to make quantum thieves lose their own BTC

Bitcoin developer Ethan Heilman has proposed a “landmine” mechanism to protect vulnerable coins from quantum attackers, requiring anyone moving old, quantum-exposed BTC to post matching collateral that prepared owners could seize. The idea targets the roughly 1.7 million BTC—including Satoshi-era coins—held in early pay-to-public-key outputs that would be exposed to a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Under the proposal, a spender of such coins would have to lock up an equal amount of bitcoin, so an owner who moves first can claim both the original coins and the attacker’s collateral. The scheme is a soft-fork-style defense aimed at buying the network time rather than replacing quantum-resistant cryptography. Next, watch developer discussion over whether the collateral requirement should be voluntary or enforced, and how it might interact with other post-quantum upgrade proposals.