Amid renewed claims that quantum computers could threaten the security of Bitcoin, Blockstream CEO Adam Back, who has also been at the center of speculation that he may be Satoshi Nakamoto, has made a notable response.
Buck argued that a significant portion of these claims do not correspond to technical reality, and said the issue is being debated based on a flawed concept.
In a social media post, Buck directly addressed those spreading fear about quantum computing, saying, “Just a tip to those spreading quantum FUD: Bitcoin does not use encryption. If you don’t learn the basics correctly, this shows a serious knowledge gap.” The statement reignited a long-standing debate that how Bitcoin works is frequently misunderstood.
In response to a follower’s question about where the real risks to Bitcoin’s security model begin amid the quantum theory rumors, and which concerns are simply theoretical misunderstandings, Buck said he sees no significant short-term risks. Buck says this is decades from now, and the scenarios currently being discussed are too soon. There are still major research and development questions to be solved in applied physics before quantum computers reach a practical and scalable level. So while Buck describes the short-term risk as “nearly zero,” he says being “quantum-ready” is a prudent approach in the long term.
One of the biggest misconceptions at the center of the debate is the claim that “Bitcoin has been decrypted.” From a technical point of view, Bitcoin is not a cryptographic system. It’s a public ledger. All transactions, addresses, and amounts sent are clearly visible on the blockchain. The cryptographic structure used in Bitcoin is not used to hide data, but to prove that a transaction was actually made by the relevant key holder.
Bitcoin has operated on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) for many years, but the Taproot update also incorporated Schnorr signatures into the system. These mechanisms act as authentication tools. That is, it provides a signature and authentication system rather than “encryption”. Similarly, SHA-256, one of the basic building blocks of Bitcoin, is not an encryption algorithm, but a one-way hash function that proves that the data has not been modified.
According to experts, in theory, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could calculate the private key from the public key via the Scholl algorithm. However, this does not imply a “decryption” process as commonly claimed, and would require infrastructure far beyond the capabilities of current quantum technologies. Therefore, Adam Back and many crypto experts agree that quantum computers pose no real threat to Bitcoin in the short to medium term.
*This is not investment advice.
