What if Quantum Computers Cracked Bitcoin Today?
The post What if Quantum Computers Cracked Bitcoin Today? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com. If a quantum computer capable of breaking modern encryption were to come online today, Bitcoin would likely be under attack — and no one would know. “Everything would look like legitimate access,” David Carvalho, CEO of post-quantum infrastructure company Naoris Protocol, told Cointelegraph. “When you think you’re seeing a quantum computer out there, it’s already been in control for months.” “You wouldn’t even know,” he said. Researchers at IBM, Google and government-backed laboratories are racing to close that gap, but the clock is ticking. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has begun approving post-quantum algorithms, while most public blockchains still rely on encryption designed in the 1980s. For now, it’s a theoretical threat. But if the theory became reality, Bitcoin’s defenses would crumble faster than the network could react, Carvalho warned. The first three finalized post-quantum encryption standards. Source: NIST How a quantum attack could break Bitcoin Bitcoin’s core security depends on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, or ECDSA, a cryptographic standard first proposed in 1985. The system allows users to prove ownership with a private key, while only the corresponding public key is visible to the network. Using Shor’s algorithm, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically recover a private key directly from a public one. That would allow attackers to access any wallet where the public key has been exposed onchain, such as those used in early Bitcoin (BTC) transactions. “It would be impossible to prove a quantum computer did it because it derives legitimate access,” Carvalho said. “You’d just see those coins move as if their owners decided to spend them.” Related: Bitcoin’s quantum countdown has already begun, Naoris CEO says Kapil Dhiman, CEO and founder of Quranium — a layer-1 blockchain startup focused on post-quantum security — warned that the earliest and…
The post What if Quantum Computers Cracked Bitcoin Today? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
If a quantum computer capable of breaking modern encryption were to come online today, Bitcoin would likely be under attack — and no one would know. “Everything would look like legitimate access,” David Carvalho, CEO of post-quantum infrastructure company Naoris Protocol, told Cointelegraph. “When you think you’re seeing a quantum computer out there, it’s already been in control for months.” “You wouldn’t even know,” he said. Researchers at IBM, Google and government-backed laboratories are racing to close that gap, but the clock is ticking. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has begun approving post-quantum algorithms, while most public blockchains still rely on encryption designed in the 1980s. For now, it’s a theoretical threat. But if the theory became reality, Bitcoin’s defenses would crumble faster than the network could react, Carvalho warned. The first three finalized post-quantum encryption standards. Source: NIST How a quantum attack could break Bitcoin Bitcoin’s core security depends on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, or ECDSA, a cryptographic standard first proposed in 1985. The system allows users to prove ownership with a private key, while only the corresponding public key is visible to the network. Using Shor’s algorithm, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically recover a private key directly from a public one. That would allow attackers to access any wallet where the public key has been exposed onchain, such as those used in early Bitcoin (BTC) transactions. “It would be impossible to prove a quantum computer did it because it derives legitimate access,” Carvalho said. “You’d just see those coins move as if their owners decided to spend them.” Related: Bitcoin’s quantum countdown has already begun, Naoris CEO says Kapil Dhiman, CEO and founder of Quranium — a layer-1 blockchain startup focused on post-quantum security — warned that the earliest and…
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