When I read the headline "Nexus 6P has hardware fuse which blows when bootloader is unlocked", I asked myself if it was April Fools day already. If you have been around long enough then you know that some devices actually did have a fuse back in the day. The Motorola Droid X was the first bootloader locked device I ever owned. It had an eFuse which would render your device useless if you flashed unapproved software to the phone, at least until you reflashed the stock firmware.
It seems as though the Nexus 6P has something similar. In other words the qfuse is not a fuse that physically breaks when you unlock your bootloader. The qfuse may just be there as a mechanism to check for software versions so that you can be alerted on boot if you are running a custom firmware or custom recovery (remember the secureboot we discussed the other day).
Nexus devices have always been developer friendly. For Google to try to stick it to you with a fuse that lets them know if the device has ever been unlocked is not really their game. It has always been the policy that you can relock your bootloader to regain warranty status on your device. So the qfuse is not there to forever kill your warranty, disable Android pay, or kill any features.
AutoPrime a well known Android security expert explains the whole situation in his reddit post below.
via reddit