Developers Found a Way to Protect Bitcoin from Quantum Attacks

A group of developers has found a way to protect the network of the first cryptocurrency from potential threats posed by quantum computers. The CTO of (CTO) Casa, Jameson Lopp, published a proposal on GitHub.

"Quantum attackers can compute private keys for known public addresses and then slowly transfer funds to avoid attracting the attention of the crypto community. We will likely learn about the day of the quantum hack much later if the attackers do not intentionally broadcast the transactions," he noted.

The essence of the initiative is to transfer users of digital gold to quantum-resistant addresses, while blocking all old ones. Frozen funds can be recovered. According to the developers, this will require creating a separate proposal to update Bitcoin (BIP).

They referred to BIP 360, which was developed by senior protocol engineer Anduro Hunter Beast. This hard fork involves the implementation of a new type of address that uses post-quantum cryptography.

According to analysts at Deloitte, 25% of all bitcoins are at risk of quantum attacks. This includes 1 million BTC that belong to Satoshi Nakamoto.

"The cryptographic foundations of Bitcoin have never faced such an existential threat. A successful quantum attack on Bitcoin would result in significant economic upheaval and damage to the entire ecosystem," the study states.

Recall that in March, Lopp suggested burning quantum-vulnerable bitcoins. The CTO of Casa stated that recovering access to lost assets contradicts the fundamental principles of digital gold: censorship resistance, transaction immutability, and conservatism.

Previously, specialists from the research organization Chaincode Labs assessed the threat of quantum computers to the network of the first cryptocurrency.