Talk of quantum computers at cryptocurrency events no longer sounds like science fiction. At a recent developer gathering, ETH Denver, engineers and security researchers turned their attention to a simple but disturbing question. What will happen to Bitcoin when powerful quantum machines come online?
The report shows that new proposals are being incorporated into the network improvement process to lay an early foundation for defense before a real crisis emerges.
Quantum Computing: Why Hashing Isn’t a Major Fear
Hashing, which miners and many other parts of the system use, is made slightly faster using quantum tricks. Lov Grover’s work shows that quantum search methods provide a square root speedup that changes the safety margin but does not completely eliminate it.
To put it simply, cracking hashes at scale would require huge, and perhaps impractical, machines under current models.
Signing faces real risks
The bigger worry, according to the report, is signatures. “What we worry about over the next five years is signatures, and these are like Shor’s signatures,” Hunter Beast, co-author of BIP 360, said at the ETH Denver gathering.
The math behind most wallets today relies on elliptic curves, and Peter Shor has shown how quantum machines can turn that math on its head.
This is how a public key can reveal a private key if the right hardware exists. A blockchain security company has already tracked addresses that have exposed public keys, and the number is quite large.
A list from blockchain cybersecurity company Project Eleven shows millions of coins that could be at risk if an attacker has a sufficiently large quantum device.
How close are we?
Estimates are moving. Older papers put the required resources into millions of qubits. Recent research from groups such as Iceberg Quantum suggests that this figure could be much lower, perhaps in the six-figure range.
Still, the raw qubit count tells only part of the story. What matters is how many “logical” qubits can run with an acceptable error rate, how long the computation takes, and whether the machine can remain stable during that time.
The laboratory stage of large companies is also important. For example, Google has reported progress in fixing errors, which many find encouraging. This doesn’t mean an intrusion is imminent, but it does change your risk model.
position in the industry
According to reports, a team is being formed to research and build defenses. The Ethereum Foundation has a post-quantum group, and major exchanges and companies are participating in discussions.
Coinbase founding advisor and CEO Brian Armstrong said the issue could be addressed through the plan. “It’s solvable,” he said.
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