A panel of leading researchers from some of the world’s top institutions is warning that quantum computing poses a real and growing threat to Bitcoin, and that the industry cannot afford to wait until the danger is imminent before acting.
The Coinbase Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain, made up of researchers from Stanford, UT Austin, the Ethereum Foundation, Eigen Labs, Bar-Ilan University and UC Santa Barbara, releases a new report outlining both the scale of the threat and the urgency of the response required.
According to the independent advisory board, crypto is safe today, but the industry needs to get its act together to prepare for the threat of quantum computers.
“A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could one day break the cryptography that secures digital assets across major blockchains. The board has high confidence that this type of machine will eventually be built.”
The board also highlights that the urgency comes from the time it will take to upgrade an entire decentralized ecosystem.
“Upgrading the security of an entire decentralized ecosystem — blockchains, wallets, exchanges, hardware — takes years. The board’s view is straightforward: the time to start preparing is now, not when it’s urgent.”
But the board notes that not all of Bitcoin’s infrastructure faces equal exposure. It says Bitcoin mining, hash functions, and the chain’s historical record are not meaningfully threatened by quantum computing. The real vulnerability lies at the wallet level, specifically the cryptography that proves ownership of assets.
“The cryptography that proves you own your assets — your digital signature — is the part a quantum computer could eventually break. Wallets where certain key information is publicly visible on-chain are the most exposed. For Bitcoin, an estimated 6.9 million BTC fall into this category.”
The urgent call from the Coinbase Independent Advisory Board on Quantum Computing and Blockchain comes as Google said in late March that quantum frontiers may be closer than previously expected.
“Large-scale cryptographically relevant quantum computers (CRQCs) will also be able to break current, widely used public-key cryptography that protects things like people’s confidential information. Governments and others, including Google, have been preparing for this security challenge for many years. With continued scientific and technological progress, CRQCs are getting closer to reality, requiring a transition to PQC, which is why we recently introduced our 2029 migration timeline.”
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