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Bitcoin security could fall by 2030 thanks to quantum PCs

Lots of people are still betting on Bitcoin as their go-to currency for their investments, but what if its security is constantly compromised? In principle, it would no longer be an interesting value to invest as a real option to earn money, but it is what could happen according to some researchers in just a few years, where quantum PCs would break the security of Bitcoin exposing this cryptocurrency.

Scientists from the University of Sussex have launched a study where they say very interesting things about the future of Bitcoin, where the main key is security. This is currently incredibly high, so transactions are apparently safe, but it may not be so in just 8 or 10 years. What are they based on to affirm it?

Bitcoin, quantum PCs and their power

intel quantum processors production

It is true that we have just started with quantum processors as well as PCs in general, where the most advanced thing today is the concept developed by IBM that you get only 127 qubits. The number is low, but it is the initial step to understand how this type of computer works as well as to develop new, more powerful equipment, and this is where the study comes into play.

As you surely know, Bitcoin offers a SHA-256 algorithm that prevents the transactions carried out from ending up in the hands of the wrong person by protecting the value chain of the same by means of a cryptographic key. This key is partially vulnerable for a short period of time, so security is not immediate either, but this would not matter if we had a quantum PC at home with 1.9 billion qubits.

With that power, Bitcoin encryption would fall in just 10 minutes, which is impressive. But suppose this power is only available to the biggest fortunes on the planet, then how many qubits would we need to have in our PC to crack the encryption? With 317 million it would take only one hour, and if we had 13 million qubits in 24 hours the cipher would have dropped.

When will this happen?

quantum-pc-india

Well, the estimates and predictions of the study say that at some point in the next decade, since the advances are being significant, so from 2030 Bitcoin would be at serious risk of being a cryptocurrency without security for certain estates or billionaires.

The problem is really more serious, since Bitcoin and Ethereum hacks already occur today, because as they say, a chain is only as strong as its weakest point and hackers know exactly where to attack. There are several examples of attacks on foreign exchange companies and even on the bridges that link these exchanges from one cryptocurrency to another.

The latest attack diverted $320 million worth of Ethereum to an unknown whereabouts. But let’s not just think about breaking the encryption, because simply accelerating the hash with Grover’s algorithm would already have a problem that could not be detected because it would be considered classical mining. At the moment and according to the researchers, it is more likely that the encryption will be broken using the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), and is that the only point in which the public Bitcoin key is available is after a transaction, since this is transmitted to the network and a time is created until its acceptance in the chain of blocks.

Therefore, Bitcoin is already threatened by quantum PCs, it is only a matter of time before its security ends up falling.

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