Bitcoin Post-Quantum
post-quantum security and privacy
There is mounting evidence that quantum computers will become powerful enough to crack popular cryptographic schemes in the foreseeable future, even though it is impossible to accurately predict when it will happen. We would like to announce the fork of the Bitcoin blockchain that will occur on block
#555000. The Bitcoin Post-Quantum is the first Bitcoin blockchain fork with a quantum-safe signature scheme that brings true security (both classical and post-quantum) and anonymity. Details:
https://bitcoinpq.org/#whitepaper128-bit post-quantum securityAccording to the PQCRYPTO recommendations Bitcoin Post-Quantum implements stateful hash-based signature scheme (XMSS W-OTS+). Coins can be easily transferred from the legacy and segwit v0 ECDSA-addresses to the new quantum-safe segwit v1 addresses. To obtain the balance in the Bitcoin Post-Quantum blockchain, users who own coins in Bitcoin's main blockchain at the time of the fork must generate a pq-address. Afterwards, they should enter their old ECDSA keys into the wallet program and make the first transaction to the new address from their old addresses.
Quantum-resistant proof of workOriginally conceived as ASIC-resistant, Equihash algorithm based on the generalized birthday problem is quantum-resistant in the sense that the classical devices for its implementation are much more cost-effective than quantum devices; thus, it excludes the possibility of concentration of the large computing power in the hands of an attacker with access to quantum computing devices. Bitcoin Post-Quantum uses Equihash with unique parameters n = 96, k = 3. Mining software is already available for Nvidia CUDA devices and can be downloaded from:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/nheqminer/Mining pool:
https://pool.bitcoinpq.orgTrue privacy: post-quantum zero-knowledge proofPrivacy is an obligatory feature of money. Nobody has the right to know how much money you have in your wallet, or when, to whom, and for what you pay. This information should be private until you consider it necessary to disclose it to someone. Bitcoin's initial orientation to the anonymity of public keys and their regular change to achieve privacy did not justify itself because the connections between the used public keys are visible in the blockchain and are easy to analyze. Some cryptocurrencies try to solve this problem by using non-interactive zero-knowledge proof schemes such as zk-SNARKs. The proposed schemes of confidential transactions and MimbleWimble are also of interest. However, as these solutions are not quantum-safe, they cannot be considered safe at all. In addition, it is important to understand that all anonymous transactions that are done today with the help of quantum-unsafe algorithms, will be easily disclosed by a quantum computer in the future and thus cannot be considered fully anonymous today. In subsequent protocol updates, Bitcoin Post-Quantum will use quantum-safe non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs like ZKB++/Picnic and zk-STARKs to achieve privacy.
SegWit/Lightning NetworkThe Bitcoin Post-Quantum codebase is forked from Bitcoin Core 0.16.0 and includes support for SegWit. Thus, there is no transaction malleability problem in BPQ and it is ready for the Lightning Network. All BPQ transactions are SegWit-transactions (except of transactions from legacy Bitcoin addresses).
ElectrumPQ lightweight walletThere is already available lightweight wallet ElectrumPQ. You can download it:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/electrumpqFor the security reasons, it is strongly recommended that you transfer the money from the keys in the main Bitcoin blockchain to addresses that are managed by other keys before you enter the old ECDSA keys into the wallet program.
EmissionApproximately one year after the launch of the main BPQ network, support for the old ECDSA signatures will be completely disabled. The coins, which by that time will not be protected from quantum attack by transfer to quantum-safe addresses, will be burned. Therefore, the previously lost keys will not be compromised in the BPQ blockchain. Award for mining will be increased so that the final emission of coins will be equal to 21,000,000. Premine is 5% of the total emission. 50% of premine is timelocked for 2 years with payments each month.
How to start
• Bitcoin Post-Quantum is a bit different than Bitcoin. Instead of multiple addresses, the best practice is to reuse a single address. In contrast with Bitcoin the address can be used a limited number of times (from a thousand to a million, depending on the chosen height of the Merkle tree). You can receive coins to your address if you had bitcoins in your wallet at the time of the fork (Mainnet block #555000), or by mining. If you had bitcoins in the Bitcoin Testnet at the time of the Testnet fork at block #1445550, you can claim same balance in the BitcoinPQ Testnet. Before you start using it, please be sure to carefully read the guidelines:
https://bitcoinpq.github.io/• You can build a full node from sources:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/bitcoinpq • Or you can use lightwallet ElectrumPQ:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/electrumpq• If you have Nvidia GPU you can already setup mining in the Testnet before the release of the Mainnet. How to compile and run miner please read here:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/nheqminer
Site: https://bitcoinpq.orgWhitepaper: https://bitcoinpq.org/download/bitcoinpq-whitepaper-english.pdfWalletsFullnode:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/bitcoinpqElectrumPQ:
https://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/electrumpqBlock explorersMainnet:
http://explorer.mainnet.bitcoinpq.orgTestnet:
http://explorer.testnet.bitcoinpq.orgPoolshttp://pool.bitcoinpq.orgMiner's guidehttps://github.com/bitcoinpostquantum/nheqminerMediaTwitter:
https://twitter.com/bitcoinpqFacebook:
https://facebook.com/bitcoinpqMedium:
https://medium.com/bitcoinpq
