Namely, bitcoin transactions are electronically signed using a really complicated algorithms based on what mathematicians call elliptic curves. The idea is that creating such a signature is prohibitively difficult for any computer unless one holds the secret key, and that it can be verified easily using the public key. This is possible because quantum computers are not restricted to processing digital information, but instead perform calculations directly using the quantum mechanical interactions that dominate physics at a microscopic scale.
Researchers are still trying to find out exactly what kind of problems quantum computers are superior at solving. This algorithm is able to compute the secret key from the public key efficiently, and thus is able to create signatures quickly once the public key is revealed. In fact, we believe that only quantum computers will ever be able to perform this computation.
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Read more: What Wikipedia can teach us about blockchain technology. The current mechanics of bitcoin mean the public key is only revealed with the signature when a transaction is proposed to the network. We can think of this attack as analogous to robbing a customer just before he enters a bank to deposit money. Making things worse, for many bitcoin transactions the public key is actually already known and stored on the blockchain.
This removes the timing constraint for the above attack and allows a thief to steal funds even if no transaction is proposed. This affects approximately a third of the bitcoin market capital , or several tens of billions of dollars. It is hard to predict when quantum computers will be strong and fast enough to perform these attacks, but it is fair to assume that we are safe for at least the next ten years.
Quantum computing will break the blockchain and QKD can save it | QuantumXC
It is important that researchers find alternatives to elliptic curve cryptography that are resistant against attacks by quantum computers. And although no standard has emerged yet, alternative cryptocurrencies that take quantum computers into account are being developed right now.
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So even if bitcoin might ultimately succumb to quantum computers, blockchain and cryptocurrencies will certainly live on. Mesopotamian mud: a journey through voice and vessel — Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in.
Quantum computers and the Bitcoin blockchain
Marco Tomamichel , University of Technology Sydney. This is a very useful property for breaking encryption, since the RSA family of encryption depends on factoring large prime numbers in exactly this manner. They estimate that large enough quantum computers to disrupt classical encryption will potentially arrive in the next twenty years. For cryptocurrencies, a fork in the future that might affect large parts of the chain, but it will be somewhat predictable — there is a lot of thought being placed on post-quantum encryption technology.
Bitcoin would not be one of the first planks to fall if classical encryption were suddenly broken for a number of reasons. Yet, a soft fork as opposed to a hard one might be enough to help move crypto-assets from suddenly insecure keys to secure post-quantum encryption. SHA is theorized to be quantum-resistant. The most efficient theoretical implementation of a quantum computer to detect a SHA collision is actually less efficient than the theorized classical implementation for breaking the standard. Most of the encryption in modern cryptocurrencies are built on elliptic curve cryptography rather than RSA — especially in the generation of signatures in bitcoin which requires ECDSA.
This is largely due to the fact that elliptic curves are correspondingly harder to crack than RSA sometimes exponentially so from classical computers.
What is Quantum Computing?
However, quantum computers seem to flip this logic on its head: given a large enough quantum computer with enough qubits, you can break elliptic curve cryptography easier than you might break RSA. Both elliptic curve cryptography are widely used in a bunch of other industries and use cases as well — RSA and higher are standards in the conventional banking system to send encrypted information, for example. With cryptocurrency wallet reuse being frowned upon, and a general encouragement of good privacy practices, the likelihood of this attack is already being reduced.
Yet the most likely case is that larger systems of quantum computing will be treated like any kind of hardware, similar to the transition for miners between GPUs, FGPAs and ASICs — a slow economic transition to better tooling. Bitcoin and even other cryptocurrencies and their history are filled with examples of hardware and software changes that had to be made to make the network more secure and performant — and good security practices in the present avoiding wallet reuse can help prepare for a more uncertain future. I was one of the first writers in to write about the intersection of cryptocurrencies in remittance payments and drug policy with VentureBeat and TechCrunch.
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