Many of you ask is quantum computing a threat to cryptocurrency or not. Some cyber critic thinks that cryptocurrency like bitcoin is at risk due to the highly optimized quantum blockchain that can leak the blockchain key information.
However, Quantum computing still has a lengthy path to go before posing a threat to blockchain technology. In the past five years, quantum computing has gained more concern regarding the future of cryptocurrency and its fundamental blockchain technology.
People assume that highly sophisticated quantum computers will be able to crack the current encryption mechanism someday in the future. This is why its security has become a severe concern for those users who are already in the blockchain arena.
Bitcoin security system is currently using SHA-256 cryptographic protocol. It is said that this security network is unbreakable by current computers. But professionals expect that quantum computing will be breakable within a decade.
According to the chief technology officer of QAN, Johann Polecsak, current encryption protocols will be breakable by quantum computers. So crypto holders need to be worried about the threat to cryptocurrency.
A report published in the Cointelegraph indicated a dilemma in between security of the crypto network.
According to the report, Elliptic curve signatures that are supporting all main blockchains today and which are confirmed to be vulnerable to QC attacks will break. It is the ONLY authentication tool in the system. Once it breaks, it will be unattainable to determine a fair wallet owner and a cracker who generated a signature of one.
If the present cryptographic hash algorithms ever get decrypted, that departs hundreds of billions of dollar worth of digital assets vulnerable to stealing from evil players. Yet, despite these problems, quantum computing still has a prolonged way to reach before evolving into a possible threat to blockchain technology.
What is quantum computing?
Modern computers process data and take out calculations using “bits.” Unfortunately, these binary bits cannot exist concurrently in two locations and two different states.
Instead, standard computers have the value of 0 or 1. A useful metaphor is a lamp switch being turned on or off. Thus, if there are a couple of bits, for instance, those bits can just carry one of the four possible combinations at any point: 0-0, 1-0, 0-1, or 1-1.
From a better practical perspective, the significance of this is that it is the potential to take an intermediate computer quite some period to achieve complex calculations, namely those that require bringing into account each possible configuration.
Quantum computers do not work under the exact conditions of classic computers. Rather, they use something that is called quantum bits or “qubits” instead of classical bits. These qubits coexist in the states of 0 and 1 at the same time.
As mentioned previously, two bits may solely concurrently maintain one of four potential combinations. But, a single pair of qubits is qualified of holding all four at the identical time. And the number of potential opportunities increases exponentially with each extra qubit.
As a result, quantum computers can perform many computations while parallelly evaluating several different configurations. For example, a 54-qubit Sycamore processor developed by google was able to finish a computation in 200 seconds. To do the same task, the most powerful supercomputer would have taken 10,000 years.
Quantum computers are far better and faster than classical computers since they use qubits to function various computations simultaneously. Let us inform you that qubits can hold the value of both 0 and 1 or 0, and 1 as well. This is why it becomes more efficient than the binary bits approach which is currently used by existing computers.
Types Of Quantum Attacks
Storage attacks implicate a hostile party trying to rob cash by concentrating on unsuspecting blockchain addresses, such as those where the wallet’s shared key is seeable on a public register.
25% of BTC, are vulnerable to an attack by a quantum computer because of holders using un-hashed shared keys or re-using BTC addresses.
The quantum computer would have to be strong enough to decrypt the secret key from the un-hashed shared address. If the personal key is successfully decoded, the malicious player can loot a user’s accounts directly from their crypto wallets.
But according to the experts, the computing power needed to perform these cyber attacks would be millions of times better than the existing quantum computers.
Researchers have hypothesized that the numeral of qubits in use might go 10 million in a decade. To protect from those attacks, cryptocurrency users need to stop using addresses or they can move their funds into the addresses where the shared key has not been published.
Anyone with access to a strong quantum computer can attempt to rob money from a crypto transaction by throwing a transit attack.
However, bringing it out is tougher because the attacker must terminate it before the miners can complete the transaction.
Due to very short confirmation time on highly secured networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin, a cyberpunk has no more time in most cases. They also need billions of qubits to perform a such attack.
Safeguarding against raids while in transit is not a comfortable job. To do this, it is essential to exchange the elementary cryptographic signature of the blockchain for one that is immune to a quantum attack.
