Quantum Alliance Targets Bitcoin’s Future Security

Nine crypto organizations have created the Quantum Alliance to define common standards to protect blockchains against future quantum computers. The group estimates that 6.04 million BTC already have a visible public key, but these funds cannot be stolen with machines available today. The threat concerns the cryptography that proves bitcoin ownership , not the general operation of the blockchain. Bitcoin uses signatures based on elliptic curves to verify that a transaction has indeed been authorized by the holder of a private key. A public key allows other users to verify a signature. Classical computers cannot turn it into a private key within a realistic timeframe. A future error-corrected quantum machine could, however, apply Shor’s algorithm to solve this mathematical problem. Estimates vary depending on address types and method used.

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