Uh oh, looks like Bitcoin is nearing it’s end!
For years, us cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been touting Bitcoin and other digital coins as the future of money — you know, secure, decentralized, and immune to the whims of governments and Wall Street.
But those dreams may be shattered sooner than anyone expected. By the end of this decade, experts warn that the rise of powerful quantum computers could render the cryptography behind Bitcoin completely useless, potentially spelling the end of cryptocurrency as we know it.
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What Is Quantum Computing?
Technology is bringing in so many advancements like DePins but could also barge crypto with damaging threats. Traditional computers that we use today store information as “bits” that can be either a 1 or a 0. They crunch through these 1s and 0s to perform calculations and run programs.
Quantum computers work a little differently. Instead of regular bits, they use “qubits” which can exist in a quantum state and be both 1 AND 0 at the same time. This allows quantum computers to perform massively parallel computations that traditional computers simply can’t match.
This makes quantum computers exponentially more powerful for certain types of computations, like breaking encryption or simulating complex systems. The downside is that qubits are extremely fragile and hard to control.
The Quantum Threat to Crypto
In our previous blog Will quantum computers soon destroy Bitcoin? We have discussed late 2021 how Quantum computers have become a serious threat to Bitcoin. But how about this 2024?
Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum use special codes called encryption to keep people’s digital money safe. These codes are really good at protecting against hackers — for now.
The problem is, a new type of super-powerful computer called a quantum computer could potentially crack these codes wide open. Quantum computers work really differently than regular computers, and they’re getting more advanced every year.
You see, the encryption used by most cryptocurrencies today relies on math problems that are really hard for regular computers to solve. But quantum computers are so powerful, they could solve those problems in the blink of an eye. That means they could easily break into people’s cryptocurrency wallets and steal all their digital money.
This is a big deal because the entire cryptocurrency market is worth trillions of dollars. Bitcoin alone has a value of over $1 trillion! If quantum computers can crack the encryption, it could cause a massive economic crash that wipes out huge amounts of wealth.
It’s not just the big cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum either. Almost every crypto uses the same type of encryption that’s vulnerable to quantum computers. So the entire crypto world is at risk.
Researchers are working on new types of quantum-resistant encryption to try and protect cryptocurrencies. But if quantum computers advance faster than expected, it could spell the end of crypto as we know it. It’s a race against time to stay one step ahead of this emerging technology.
Also read Did you Know what Bitcoin is Predicted to Reach $150,000 in 2030? Here’s the Big Answer!
So Will Crypto be Doomed by 2030?
In 2017, some researchers warned that quantum computers might be able to crack the encryption used by Bitcoin as early as 2027. They said that quantum computers with a large number of quantum bits could potentially break the digital signatures that protect Bitcoin transactions.
The researchers say that the threat is still there, but a lot has changed in the past few years. Quantum computers have been improving, and estimates suggest that it may only take around a million qubits to crack Bitcoin’s encryption, down from earlier estimates of 10–20 million qubits.
However, building large-scale quantum computers with low error rates is still an enormous challenge. Companies like IBM are working hard to develop more powerful quantum computers, but they are still far from being able to crack Bitcoin’s encryption.
Some experts believe that if quantum computers do become powerful enough to break Bitcoin, the people who develop that technology might keep it secret and use it quietly to steal Bitcoin, rather than announcing their breakthrough.
On the other hand, other scientists are skeptical about the threat posed by quantum computers, describing current quantum computers as “terrible” and unable to do anything useful. The delicate nature of qubits, the need for extreme cooling, and the challenge of integrating quantum and classical computing systems all make it difficult for quantum computers to reach their full potential in the near future.
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Should We Be Worried?
It’s hard to know exactly when a powerful quantum computer might be built that can break the encryption we use today. Some experts think it could happen sooner than most people expect. The Quantum Threat Timeline Report says a few experts think there’s a more than 5% chance it could happen within the next 10 years, and a few even say it’s more than a 50% chance.
However, developing quantum computers is slow and expensive. The real-world uses of quantum computers are still quite limited, and there’s a lot more work to be done before they become widely available and can threaten the encryption used in decentralized networks. Encryption with 80-bit, 112-bit, and 160-bit keys is still pretty safe against attacks from regular computers for at least the next few decades. And a very complex 2048-bit key would need about 20 million quantum computing units, which is way beyond what current quantum computers can do.
The good news is that right now, it’s just too complicated and expensive to use quantum computers to break the encryption we use today. It’s more likely that scientists will be able to develop quantum-proof encryption before quantum computers become common and affordable.
How to Protect Your Crypto Investments
One way to protect against quantum threats is quantum-proof cloud-based encryption, like what companies like Proton are working on. In a quantum-proof cloud system, public key infrastructure could provide an extra layer of protection for the encryption used in blockchain technology, which relies heavily on encryption keys.
The field of quantum-proof cryptography is growing rapidly and attracting a lot of investment, especially in countries like China that are leading the way in quantum research. Most scientists agree we still have time to prepare for the “Q-Day” when quantum computers can break today’s encryption. Researchers are working hard to transition to quantum-proof encryption to protect our privacy and transactions.
As long as the push for quantum-proof blockchain continues, your cryptocurrency wallets should be safe from any quantum computing threats for a long time. Hopefully by then, you’ll have made some good profits too!
