William Casarin, a Haskell and Rush computer programmer, has suggested not using taproot (or at least carefully considering the implications), a recently published Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) that aims to enhance the leading cryptocurrency’s privacy and overall network efficiency.

If you are worried about quantum computers, don’t use taproot. It’s pay to pubkey not pubkey hash. — William Casarin (@jb55) May 29, 2019

Casarin, a Vancouver-based game developer, pointed out via Twitter that taproot is “pay to pubkey, not pubkey hash.” He also questioned why the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol developers would integrate the “complicated script validation logic” associated with BIP-Taproot as the cryptocurrency’s codebase “might be insecure in 30 years” from now.

In response to Casarin’s comments, Mario Gibney, the Customer Support Team Lead at Blockstream, said that he was surprised as he had not heard about it before. Casarin also asked:

Is it possible to have a pay to pubkey hash version of taproot?

According to prominent Bitcoin Core developer Dr. Pieter Wuille, hashing public keys “doesn’t add any security.” Wuille, co-founder at Blockstream, added that “the widely repeated claim that it protects against quantum computers is nonsense.” He also clarified that “anyone who ever reused an address, or shared an xpub (or used Electrum) has their pubkeys already public.”

“Bitcoin Outputs Aren’t Secure Against a Quantum Computer Even When They’re Hashed”

Responding to Wuille’s statements, Casarin noted that there are “theoretical proposed algorithms for quantum attacks on pubkeys, but not hashes.” The physics enthusiast then questioned Wuille’s claim regarding hashing public keys not being able to enhance security.

He acknowledged that pay to script hash (p2sh) may have “reduced” security “due to collisions”, however he asked Wuille to point out the the main arguments that suggest “pubkey attacks impossible.”

Wuille remarked:

It’s not that pubkey attacks are impossible (assuming a QC); it’s that in practice bitcoin outputs aren’t secure against a QC even when they’re hashed. — Pieter Wuille (@pwuille) May 29, 2019

Taproot, a “Neat Idea”

Casarin then argued that you could “buy yourself some in the inflight case.” He also mentioned that if he we was operating a QC, then he’d focus on “the already exposed outputs.” Casarin further noted:

I can’t imagine ever using taproot for that reason. Pretty neat idea otherwise.

In response, Wuille stated:

If there’s ever evidence of theft due to a QC, and 5M BTC are readily available for the taking to such a hypothetical machine, do you think BTC will still have any value left?

According to Casarin, the only way Bitcoin would manage to survive is if users were aware of the fact that they can “at least move to quantum secure outputs.”

Current State of QCs: IBM Has 50 Qubits, Google 72

Meanwhile, Wuille mentioned:

Any unconfirmed transaction in flight exposes public keys, so if a QC exists, at least moving coins around safely becomes impossible. Further, a massive fraction of the currency supply can be taken. Lastly, you likely have exposed your own pubkey already.

He added:

Given all those hypothetical attack models that pubkey hashing doesn’t help with at all, I think it’s fair to say that Bitcoin as it exists today is not quantum secure, period.

Confirming that QCs exist today and elaborating on their current state of development, Twitter user Noclone3 pointed out “QCs do already exist in a primitive form, namely, not error corrected. IBM has 50 qubits, Google 72, Rigetti should deliver 128, IonQ 160. The burden of error correction depends on the number of needed operations (gates) and should be of the order of 1000 qubits x logical qubit.”