Author

Topic: Can a quantum computer crack Bitcoin cryptography? (Read 132 times)

sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 259
Yes, it can be cracked, and actually it's not a something that we should be worried about as if quantom computer will turn up to be successful they can make much more damage then just breaking the bitcoin's blockchain, it can break through any database, can even crack the credit cards companies and banks.
Quatom computers are too far away from actually going live and the research at this section is at it's starting point only.
We need to worry about a lot of things and quantom is not one of  them as we can always fork and make the code vulnerable to quantom attacks.
mk4
legendary
Activity: 2870
Merit: 3873
📟 t3rminal.xyz
To be honest if quantum computing can be effectively used for this purpose today we would have a lot lot more things to be concerned of. Our data on the internet would be at a huge risk, as encryption could potentially be easy to crack.
full member
Activity: 448
Merit: 137
Can a quantum computer crack Bitcoin cryptography? I would like to break the myth about this one. As to cryptography, Bitcoin uses digital signature algorithms and hash functions.

Yes the ECDSA by means of which Bitcoin's digital signature works, can be cracked, but the hash function is considered invulnerable to attacks of a quantum computer. Therefore, we still have a risk that a private key can be obtained through the public one.
Address is a hash value obtained, by means of two different hash functions, so you can not get the public key from it. Public key is not visible in the blockchain until the coins are spent, so we can create a new address for each payment and the coins will be safe.

Computing capabilities of a quantum computer pose a threat to many cryptographic algorithms. However, cryptographers from all around the world are working on creation of quantum-stable cryptographic algorithms. Bitcoin's protocol can be updated and post-quantum algorithms of electronic signature can be added to it, when it’s necessary.

Therefore too early to be afraid of a quantum computer threat for Bitcoin. Today we still don't have a fully functioning quantum computer, while the post-quantum cryptography has already presented some sustainable solutions.

Author :  Anastasia Sapozhkova
Jump to: