BTQ Technologies Corp. has announced the first functional implementation of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP 360) on its Bitcoin Quantum Testnet v0.3.0. This marks the transition of BIP 360 from a draft concept into a live, testable environment for developers, miners, and researchers. The core of BIP 360 is a new quantum-resistant output type called Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR).
P2MR is designed as a direct response to a significant long-term vulnerability in Bitcoin: the exposure of elliptic curve public keys in certain transaction types, such as Taproot (P2TR) addresses. An estimated 6.26 million BTC (roughly $440 billion) is held in these quantum-vulnerable addresses. A future quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could theoretically derive private keys from these exposed public keys, leading to fund theft.
The P2MR model works by removing Taproot's key path spending mechanism, which relies on a single public key signature. Instead, all UTXOs must be spent through script paths (Tapscript Merkle trees), which use hash-based commitments. Hash functions are considered far more resistant to quantum attacks than elliptic curve cryptography, thereby mitigating the "harvest-now, decrypt-later" risk.
Crucially, the implementation maintains full compatibility with Bitcoin's existing smart contract ecosystem, including the Lightning Network, BitVM, Ark, multi-signature setups, and timelocks. The testnet validates the entire P2MR transaction lifecycle—from address creation and funding to signing, mempool acceptance, and block confirmation.
BTQ's testnet v0.3.0 also features one-minute block spacing for faster iteration, a restored SegWit discount (critical for handling larger post-quantum signatures), and Dilithium-focused signature operation hardening. The network currently connects over 50 miners and has processed more than 100,000 blocks.
However, BTQ and the BIP 360 authors acknowledge the proposal's limits. It addresses long-exposure quantum risk but does not protect against short-exposure attacks, where a quantum computer would need to break a signature within a transaction's confirmation window. Full post-quantum security will require future upgrades to signature schemes. The company also highlighted the significant adoption hurdles ahead, noting Bitcoin's conservative upgrade culture where major changes like SegWit and Taproot took roughly 8.5 and 7.5 years, respectively, to achieve widespread use.
