"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."
Closing paragraphs from https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/innovatie/artikelen/quantum-computers-and-the-bitcoin-blockchain.html The tldr of the article is that although quantum may pose a threat in the future, you can secure your funds from being hijacked by storing your crypto in an address that has never sent a transaction, because a quantum attack would derive your private key from your public one. This means an address whose public key was never exposed should be safe.
Similar discussion at SN at #194782
Interesting food for thought. I'm neither a cryptographer or QC expert, so I'd be interested in hearing the community's opinion – are you worried about this at all? What is your (non-)expert view of quantum becoming a threat to blockchain in the future?
I can honestly recommend this video on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaoTtkuY7jM
It contains all relevant stuff, it is well explained and is factually correct.
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...and this pretty woman is NOT generated by AI ;)
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There's no reason to think that advancements in cryptography won't keep pace with advancements in quantum computing.
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Well said.
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Here's a good answer from Antonopoulos.
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P.S. and his answer is so "good" that he "forgot" (or: doesn't even realise) - that a public key is also exposed in the moment when the transaction goes into mempool, so if quantum computer will be able to break ECDSA in ~10 minutes - we are all f***ed... :)
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SEC/US govt is fightning hard with a "small fish" right now. They definitely wouldn't utilise such a new and so handful gun in this fight, trust me bro, lol
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are you worried about this at all?
As you saw in that SN post, I post also my guide about Bitcoin myths, including the QC "threat". I have no worry at all about QC. Is just a cheap scaremonger FUD. Forget about it. We are in 2023 not in 2013.... to fool normies with this crap QC. If in 2023 you still ask this stupid question, you know NOTHING about Bitcoin. Is time for you to start reading and learning, WHAT IS, how to use Bitcoin. And you can start by reading ALL my guides (also translated in 6 languages) https://darthcoin.substack.com/
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I understand the hopium, but the article offers some convincing facts. I wouldn't just blindly throw this emerging technology off the table – Bitcoiners are, after all, in a similar boat as part of a revolutionary, disruptive tech that many still just wave off. Billions of dollars by powerful entities are being poured into this, and given the grey area the Bitcoin blockchain is legally, there is hardly any reason to believe Google (or the Chinese government) wouldn't try to crack it given the potential gains. Quantum may well be another paradigm shift and Bitcoin would be still part of the old world of binary computing in such scenario.
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If you are so concerned about QC and chinese, please give me all your bitcoin now and you can sleep well. I will take care of them and deal with all the consequences... no worry anymore.
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Quantum may well be another paradigm shift and Bitcoin
...may be prepared for it or not. Simple as that.
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There are only two serious _ long-term _ issues to fix: weak security budget and missing quantum resistance.
wen Bitcoin :)
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Not this again. "Quantum computers are posing a serious challenge..."
I just heard the other day that Jim lost his bitcoin to a quantum computer... lol
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I'm not worry about it. If Quantum computers can access your BTC funds, also they will be able to access all the bank accounts, the air traffic controller system and all that use encryption now days.
The dev from BTC will solve that issue when the time arrives.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 20 Apr
Bitcoin blockchain's security against quantum attacks is not solely dependent on the transition to post-quantum cryptography. The development of quantum-resistant algorithms can be implemented alongside post-quantum cryptography.
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Core devs can just vote on and inject an anti quantum equation and that'll take care of the quantum computer scare lol
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once it looks like we're a decade away from QCs large enough to run shor's algorithm, we do a soft-fork to add some lattice signing scheme (or other pqc signature scheme) into a new tapscript version.
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“ you can secure your funds from being hijacked by storing your crypto in an address that has never sent a transaction, because a quantum attack would derive your private key from your public one.”
I’m probs confused but this is never going to happen as if you send a transaction, the UTXO moves to the change address?
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IF such thing happens, it's not just Bitcoin that will go broke but also all the FIAT banking system and possibly the whole safety on internet.
I truly can't believe such thing might happen simply because cryptography also gets upgraded from time to time.
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it's not just Bitcoin that will go broke
I'm here because I don't really care about crappy FIAT banking system - it can (or: should) go broke for me while we have Bitcoin + LN
and what if Bitcoin for being upgraded to post-quantum cryptography - would require a hard fork? (quite probable, because post-quantum signature size is significantly bigger) imagine that mess... not to mention that we were told every single time: hard fork is "bad for Bitcoin"...
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