The threat of quantum computers is primarily to break Bitcoin’s elliptic curve encryption, meaning that private keys can be derived from public keys. There are also potential threats to mining, but I don’t think that is very well understood (certainly it is mine). Therefore, the following applies primarily to elliptic curve encryption:
A common solution to quantum threats is to introduce a Post Quantum (PQC) signature scheme that can be done with a soft fork. After that, everyone will need to transfer funds to the PQC scheme in time before quantum threats can be realized.
The question is what to do about coins locked with vulnerable public keys (UTXOS). One option is to do nothing and ultimately stolen the coin by a quantum attacker. Another option is to avoid dending these coins with a soft fork after the set deadline. Yet another option is to prevent these coins from being deded using a vulnerable signature scheme By yourselfand there are many ways to do it, but they can all be done with a soft fork.
A hard fork will be required if you want to first avoid completely dening vulnerable coins with soft forks, then re-expenditures again using a secure signature scheme. Unless the quantum computing threat comes suddenly and unexpectedly, we don’t think we’ll do it (and there may be a big problem anyway).
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