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BTQ Technologies has released the first working implementation of Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 (BIP 360), marking an early attempt to bring quantum-resistant transaction infrastructure into a live testing environment.

Announced Thursday, the upgrade is now running on the Bitcoin Quantum testnet v0.3.0, a separate blockchain designed to simulate how Bitcoin could function in a post-quantum world. The release moves BIP 360 beyond theory, offering developers, miners, and researchers a place to test quantum-resistant transactions in practice.

BIP 360 introduces a new transaction format known as Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR), which restructures how transaction data is committed on-chain. 

The design removes the need to expose public keys during certain transaction paths, a feature that could become critical if quantum computers advance enough to break current cryptographic protections.

“BIP 360 represents the Bitcoin community’s most significant step toward quantum resistance and we’ve turned it from a proposal into running code,” said Olivier Roussy Newton, CEO of BTQ Technologies, in the company’s press release.

The implementation also preserves key functionality tied to Bitcoin’s scaling roadmap. According to BTQ, P2MR maintains compatibility with scripting features that underpin systems like Lightning and emerging frameworks such as BitVM and Ark, while eliminating the key-path spend mechanism introduced with Taproot that could expose public keys to quantum attacks.

Beyond the core transaction structure, the testnet includes full wallet tooling, allowing users to create, fund, sign, and broadcast P2MR transactions. 

BTQ said this end-to-end functionality makes the upgrade immediately testable, rather than remaining a purely academic proposal.

Bitcoin experimentation and quantum-resistance

The company’s broader goal is to accelerate experimentation around quantum-resistant infrastructure at a time when concern over future cryptographic risks is growing. The Bitcoin Quantum testnet currently includes more than 50 miners and has processed over 100,000 blocks, according to the release.

Still, the technical progress highlights a deeper challenge: adoption.

BTQ has effectively bypassed Bitcoin’s traditional governance process by launching its own testing network rather than waiting for consensus within the main ecosystem. That decision reflects longstanding friction around major protocol changes, which historically require broad agreement among developers, miners, and users.

Christopher Tam, BTQ’s head of innovation, framed the issue in human terms. “It’s a social problem,” he told Decrypt, pointing to the difficulty of coordinating change across a decentralized network with entrenched stakeholders.

The approach also raises questions about whether a parallel chain can meaningfully influence Bitcoin’s future. 

Bitcoin Quantum does not share Bitcoin’s ledger or balances, instead launching from a new genesis block with its own asset and ruleset. Users would need to opt in rather than automatically inherit the upgrade.

Even with a working implementation, BIP 360 addresses only part of the quantum threat. Tam noted that while the proposal can help secure future transactions, it does not retroactively protect older addresses that may already have exposed public keys.

The urgency, however, remains. Researchers widely expect that sufficiently advanced quantum computers could eventually break the elliptic-curve cryptography that secures Bitcoin, though the timeline is uncertain.

For now, BTQ’s testnet serves as an early proving ground. Whether its work translates into changes on Bitcoin itself may depend less on code—and more on consensus.

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