The security of Bitcoin is still robust against these developments as it depends on the hashing algorithm and elliptic curve cryptography.
However, the same cannot be the same for the coins from the Satoshi era.
The Bitcoin coins from the Nakamoto era used the Pay-to-Public key (P2PK) format. Different from today’s format, P2PK reveals the public key, exposing it to quantum attackers.
On December 10, a debate was ignited by the founder of Avalanche as he posted on X advising to freeze 1 million Bitcoins whose worth is estimated to be $97 billion.
As per the beliefs, it is considered to be mined in Bitcoin’s early days and is associated with the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.
However, the proposal of the founder is not at all linked with the probable reappearance of Bitcoin’s founder. Rather than this, he focused on the threat associated with quantum computing revolving around these assets, which are still based on older cryptographic standards.
Quantum will easily break encryption
He posted on X after the news of Google launching a quantum computing chip surfaced over the internet. As per Google, Willow is able to do computation in less than five minutes. Sirer claims that quantum computing will make it easier to do some operations such as factoring numbers. However, there are still many concerns associated with it.
The security of Bitcoin is still robust against these developments as it depends on the hashing algorithm and elliptic curve cryptography. However, the same cannot be the same for the coins from the Satoshi era.
The Bitcoin coins from the Nakamoto era used the Pay-to-Public key (P2PK) format. Different from today’s format, P2PK reveals the public key, exposing it to quantum attackers more to work with.
What does the CEO further say?
The chief executive officer of Avalanche says these coins offer the mother of all cryptography bounties, highlighting the risk created by this older format if quantum computers develop more. He claims that the Bitcoin community should look to freeze the coins stored in P2PK addresses or set a target date for their usability.
By this step, the overall integrity of Bitcoin will be safeguarded from a future where quantum computers may break P2PK cryptography. This idea ignited the debate by drawing both support and criticism.
Advocates see it as an active step to reduce risks associated with future technology. However, critics see it as an attack on decentralization as well as possession that supports Bitcoin. The latest Bitcoin wallets use Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash or P2PKH, which only unveils a hashed version of the public key.
The extra security layer makes sure that even if a quantum computer is present there, it will have to first upturn the hash to take out useful data, an extremely tough nut to break.
