Your Bitcons: How Vulnerable to Quantum Computing and What Can be Done About It
The main focus of the Deloitte study answers answer the following questions:
How many Bitcoins could be stolen now if a sufficiently large quantum computer was available?
What can one do to mitigate the risk of Bitcoins being stolen by an adversary with a quantum computer?
Is the Bitcoin blockchain inherently resilient to quantum attacks now and in the future?
Recommend reading from the source, below. Because Quantum is Coming. Qubit.
Quantum computers and the Bitcoin blockchain
Key points…
+ Quantum computers are posing a serious challenge to the security of the Bitcoin blockchain. Presently, about 25% of the Bitcoins in circulation are vulnerable to a quantum attack. If you have Bitcoins in a vulnerable address and believe that progress in quantum computing is more advanced than publicly known, then you should probably transfer your coins to a new p2pkh address (don’t forget to make a secure backup of your private key).
+ In case your own Bitcoins are safe in a new p2pkh address, you might still be impacted if many people will not (or cannot) take the same protection measures. In a situation where a large number of Bitcoins is stolen, the price will most likely crash and the confidence in the technology will be lost.
+ Even if everyone takes the same protection measures, quantum computers might eventually become so fast that they will undermine the Bitcoin transaction process. In this case the security of the Bitcoin blockchain will be fundamentally broken. The only solution in this case is to transition to a new type of cryptography called ‘post-quantum cryptography’, which is considered to be inherently resistant to quantum attacks. These types of algorithms present other challenges to the usability of blockchains and are being investigated by cryptographers around the world. We anticipate that future research into post-quantum cryptography will eventually bring the necessary change to build robust and future-proof blockchain applications.
Source: Deloitte. Itan Barmes, Quantum computers and the Bitcoin blockchain…
Content may have been edited for style and clarity.
