According to Foresight News , citing CoinDesk, Dan Robinson, general partner at venture capital firm Paradigm, recently released a proposal for a mechanism called "Provable Address Controlled Timestamps" (PACTs), which aims to provide a protection path for Bitcoin users holding quantum-fragile addresses without requiring immediate asset transfer.
This mechanism allows holders to generate address control proofs via BIP-322 and combine them with a random salt value to generate on-chain commitments. Timestamps are then used for timestamp anchoring, without requiring the disclosure of wallet information throughout the process. If Bitcoin freezes quantum-fragile addresses via a soft fork in the future, holders can submit STARK zero-knowledge proofs when spending, verifying that their commitment predates the advent of quantum computers, thereby unlocking their assets.
PACTs also fill a gap left by the previous BIP-361 proposal (which planned to phase out quantum-fragile addresses over five years), providing a rescue path for wallets derived from BIP-32. Robinson points out that the implementation of PACTs requires Bitcoin to introduce a STARK verification infrastructure, which itself requires community consensus through an independent soft fork. Furthermore, this mechanism cannot protect against situations where Satoshi Nakamoto is no longer alive—if his private key has been permanently lost, PACTs cannot retroactively generate commitments.
