Home›Crypto›Market Structure›Crypto could face early quantum attacks as upgrades la…

Crypto could face early quantum attacks as upgrades lag governance

Experts told CoinDesk that Bitcoin’s consensus-driven upgrade process may make crypto a first testing ground for quantum-enabled decryption risk by 2029.

Reported · Written up by our desk · Market Structure

Crypto is increasingly viewed as an early warning system for the broader financial system’s vulnerability to quantum computing, but experts say the main weakness is governance rather than cryptography, according to CoinDesk.

CoinDesk reports that “Q-Day” is expected to arrive gradually as attackers gain enough quantum capability to break encryption before assets lose value, and that crypto networks may be targeted first because of their decentralized structure.

Eddy Zervigon, CEO of Quantum Xchange, said in the interview that decentralized systems are likely to be the first place attackers go, and that seeing cryptographic disruption there would signal a cryptographically relevant quantum computer somewhere has emerged.

CoinDesk also points to a 2029 timeframe for a commercially relevant, cryptographically relevant quantum computer, consistent with hardware progress, including Google researchers saying that breaking elliptic-curve cryptography for leading cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether would require fewer than 500,000 physical qubits.

Latest closeBitcoin $65,239.45 ▼0.1%

More like this

Sources