FX168 Financial News (Asia-Pacific) reported that The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) warned about the potential threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin, stating that Bitcoin could be cracked within 10 years. The public key address holding 1.72 million Bitcoins and Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet funds would fall victim to quantum hacker attacks, which could pose a threat to the entire blockchain industry. #Latest Bitcoin News#

CryptoSlate reported that theoretically, quantum computers can decrypt private keys in a matter of minutes, potentially rendering Bitcoin's security architecture outdated. Google released its Willow quantum computing chip on December 9, reigniting this debate. The cryptocurrency community is concerned that quantum hacking could occur sooner than the generally expected 10 years.

(Source: CryptoSlate)

Therefore, the article from The Wall Street Journal discusses the proximity of Bitcoin being cracked by quantum computing, how it will affect the traditional financial system, and describes it as a "ticking time bomb waiting to explode."

The article states that unlike standard computers, where all data is basically represented as zeros or ones, quantum computers utilize the peculiar properties of subatomic particles to represent data as "quantum bits," which can exist in a continuous state of a mixture of zeros and ones.

(Source: WSJ)

This enables quantum computers to quickly perform tasks that traditional computers would take longer than a human lifespan to solve. These tasks include discovering new drugs, forecasting weather, or cracking encryption technologies used to protect sensitive data.

For example, a common encryption method involves very large numbers known as public keys, which are multiples of two large prime numbers. These two prime numbers can be combined to generate what is known as a private key. Data can be encoded with the public key and decoded with the private key. As the name suggests, users keep their private keys secret, while the public key can be shared.

The advantage of this method lies in the difficulty of factorization (finding the prime numbers that can be multiplied to produce the public key), which requires standard computers to spend a significant amount of time deriving the private key from the public key.

"Bitcoin will crazily become a target for attacks," said Skip Sanzeri, co-founder of the startup QuSecure focused on quantum cybersecurity. "Banks have some regulatory requirements, defense mechanisms, and the ability to protect customers, while Bitcoin is the wild west. If your Bitcoin is stolen, your wallet won't compensate you."

Although hackers have previously stolen Bitcoin, their attacks typically involve unauthorized access to Cryptocurrency Exchanges. Quantum attacks would be even more insidious, as they would raise doubts about the security of the entire Bitcoin network, rather than just a few poorly secured Cryptocurrency Exchanges.

Some Bitcoins are particularly vulnerable to quantum theft; in the early days of Bitcoin, these Bitcoins were stored in addresses where the public key was exposed, which includes about 1 million Bitcoins believed to belong to Bitcoin's mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

According to Galaxy Digital, there are approximately 1.72 million Bitcoins (worth over 160 billion dollars at current prices) stored in these addresses, which have since been gradually phased out.

Emin Gün Sirer, founder of the Avalanche cryptocurrency, stated, "There will certainly be a quantum doomsday at some future point, but that moment is still a long way off, so there is no need to panic."

Cryptos executives claim that Bitcoin can ensure security by adopting new encryption technologies that cannot be easily cracked by quantum computers, but this reform may take years. Due to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin, changing its technology requires a broad consensus among people globally who maintain its network, and past upgrades have progressed slowly and been controversial.

Even if the Community reaches a consensus on how to make Bitcoin quantum-resistant, there is another obstacle: existing Bitcoins need to be transferred to quantum-resistant addresses. Every individual or business that Holds Bitcoin must execute such a transfer, or there is a risk of being stolen by quantum thieves.