Anduro, a technology unit created by Bitcoin miner MARA (MARA), has begun integrating a proposal originally designed for the Bitcoin protocol to protect its Coordinate sidechain from potential threats stemming from quantum computing. 

This was announced by the Anduro team on August 5th via the social network X, where they stated:  

“We are making Coordinate quantum-resistant. BIP 360 is now being integrated into Coordinate, as it moves toward its mainnet release (currently in beta on testnet). The release is expected later this year.” 

Anduro, a company dedicated to developing anti-quantum technology for Bitcoin 

With the implementation of the BIP-360 technical proposal, this sidechain will add cryptographic tools that seek to resist attacks from quantum computers, a technology that is still under development, but which, if mature, could breach current digital signature systems. 

What is BIP-360 and how does it protect Bitcoin against quantum attacks? 

The BIP-360 proposal was submitted in June 2024 by the developer known as Hunter Beast, a contributor to the Bitcoin ecosystem .  

 BIP-360 introduces the cryptographic payment method known as P2QRH (Payment to Quantum Resistant Hash) and provides a transaction mechanism resistant to quantum attacks.    

The proposal aims to replace the current mechanism that protects Bitcoin signatures, ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm), with a new type of digital signature. BIP-360 is based on quantum-secure hash functions, such as SHAKE-256 or SHA-3. 

In that sense, Ben Sigman, CEO of Bitcoin Libre, considered that the use of hashes instead of public keys would eliminate the risk of exposing sensitive information, since hashes are results of one-way functions that cannot be reversed to obtain the original input, not even "with advanced technology."   

Thus, by adopting BIP-360 on Coordinate, currently in testnet phase, Anduro seeks to ensure that this sidechain maintains its integrity against future advances in quantum computing.