Bitcoin 361 Improvement Proposal (BIP-361) was incorporated into the official Bitcoin repository on April 14, 2026, and the Bitcoiner community has been debating its purported benefits, harms, and impacts ever since.
The purpose of this proposal, led by cypherpunk Jameson Ropp, is to Forced transfer of user funds Addresses that are resistant to quantum computing.
Currencies that do not migrate within the set deadline (still under discussion) will be frozen and inaccessible. In other words, Protocol makes movement technically impossible And no one could spend them, give them away or recover them. This includes approximately 1.1 million Bitcoins (BTC) believed to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto.
As reported by CriptoNoticias, Ropp has floated the idea of burning BTC, potentially vulnerable to quantum attacks, since March 2025.
Ropp himself expected rejection.
I know people don’t like that. I don’t like it either. I wrote this because I like the alternative even less. This is not a specification and does not suggest activation. This is a preliminary idea for a contingency plan and requires further investigation. I hope he never has to be considered for adoption.
Jameson Ropp, developer and creator of BIP-361.
In the face of criticism of Satoshi’s proposal to freeze BTC, Ropp clarified: “Once we get to that point, I really hope Satoshi moves to a post-quantum signature scheme.”But, “Ultimately, my thesis is that in the face of existential threats, personal economic incentives trump philosophical principles.”
Ki Young Ju, founder of CryptoQuant, said, “I didn’t expect to see a cypherpunk say that Satoshi’s coins should be frozen. It’s interesting.”
To prevent this proposal from being implemented, Pierre-Luc Dallaire Demers, one of the co-authors of BIP-361, formulated what could be seen as a cynical response to the criticism: Urges U.S. government to publicly accept weak currencies and block them with strategic reserves.
That reserve is the Bitcoin Fund announced by the U.S. government in 2025, consisting primarily of Bitcoins seized in judicial operations. Under Pierre-Luc’s proposal, states would take control of Satoshicoin before quantum computers could do it.
Pierre Luc’s proposal suggests that there are no easy solutions. “The really bad scenario is that Satoshi’s coins end up being used for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,” he warned.
Criticism: Ownership, precedent, and conflicts of interest.
“The logic of BIP-361 is to steal people’s money before others steal it. It has never been more important to protect yourself from malicious actors like Jameson Ropp and use Bitcoin as unauthorized money through your own sovereign nodes.”
Andrew Howard, general manager of the Bull Bitcoin exchange, pointed out one of the most serious consequences of Ropp’s proposal.
BIP-361 does not improve security. This sets a precedent for a forced freeze by protocol. Today is quantum. There will be another “emergency” tomorrow. no.
Andrew Howard, Directive Bull Bitcoin.
Fred Krueger, a prominent ecosystem investor, provided guidance for the criticism. Regarding the conflicts of interest of those promoting the post-quantum debate:
The first question to ask about any research or project dealing with quantum and Bitcoin is what are the motivations of its authors? If there are tokens or funding rounds, if the creator was compensated by the Ethereum Foundation, or if they had significant investments in cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin, we must assume they are malicious actors.
Fred Krueger, investor.
Krueger added: “I would like to see a non-profit organization established with donations from real Bitcoiners.”
Conflicting positions facing extreme solutions
Hunter Beast, Bitcoin developer and author of BIP-360 (Bitcoin’s other post-quantum proposal), put forward a pragmatic interpretation of BIP-361, explaining: Undesirable but possible measures under external pressure.
According to his interpretation, “No one likes BIP-361. Ropp hates it, and his co-author Ian Smith hates it. We all hate her. The point is not that we want it. We just want to be clear: BIP-361 is what happens when Wall Street gets its way.”
References to Wall Street refer to large institutional investors and financial regulators with exposure to Bitcoin. If Q-Day arrives without Bitcoin transitioning to post-quantum cryptography, those parties will have a strong incentive to push for emergency solutions to protect liquidity, even if those solutions involve freezing the coins or changing the rules of the protocol.
Meanwhile, along the same lines, traders known as cryptopaths have adopted a critical stance on Bitcoin’s governance in the face of this type of threat.
Consider that proposals like BIP-361 may eventually become popular. Due to the need to protect large amounts of institutional capitalEven if it means undermining principles like resistance to censorship. In that sense, he warned that while the measures could “immediately solve the problem,” they could come at the cost of internal tensions and even new divisions within the ecosystem.
Finally, from a more speculative angle, MetaPlanet director Phil Geiger suggested that even Satoshi Nakamoto himself could have foreseen certain forms of quantum limitations, such as the Payment to Public Key (P2PK) type, the oldest Bitcoin address.
I read that Satoshi “might have chosen them as a motivator to move humanity toward quantum computers” in line with his vision of progress toward a more advanced civilization, but this hypothesis remains in the field of interpretation.
If that is true, then that interpretation is relevant to the context of the discussion, as using BIP-361 to freeze or burn coins is not only a technical decision, but would be a deliberate destruction of what Satoshi would have left behind as an intentional legacy. Although this is a speculative hypothesis with no testable support, it shows that the debate surrounding BIP-361 extends beyond the technical.
a discussion that has just begun
BIP-361 is in draft status and has no effective date. As with any change to the Bitcoin protocol, broad consensus is required between developers and network participants, but its inclusion in the repository is the beginning of the technical discussion, not the conclusion.
Initial reactions made it clear that the fracture was not only technical. it is philosophical, political and economicAnd it will tear apart the Bitcoin ecosystem at a time when quantum threats can no longer be dismissed as hypothetical.
(Tag translation) Bitcoin (BTC)
