Author: Weilin, PANews
On December 10, Google introduced its latest quantum chip, Willow, in its official blog, reigniting discussions in the crypto community about the threat of quantum computing attacks. Will quantum computing undermine existing encryption security mechanisms, particularly posing a threat to mainstream cryptocurrencies like BTC?
Partly due to market sentiment, as of 2:20 pm on December 10, according to data from Coinglass, a violent crypto market correction triggered $1.758 billion in liquidations within 24 hours.
Google Releases Latest Quantum Chip "Willow"
In the blog post, Google announced that the "Willow" quantum chip has achieved two major breakthroughs. First, with the increase in the number of qubits (the unit of quantum information), Willow can achieve exponential reduction in error rates, overcoming a key challenge that has been the focus of quantum error correction for nearly 30 years. Second, Willow completed a standard benchmark calculation in less than five minutes, while the same computational task would take the fastest supercomputer today 10^25 years to complete, a number far exceeding the age of the universe.
"This provides credible support for the idea of quantum computation occurring in multiple parallel universes, which is also consistent with the theory that we live in a multiverse, first proposed by David Deutsch," said Hartmut Neven, founder and head of Google Quantum AI, in the blog post.
Qubits are the basic unit of information and the core of quantum computing; the more qubits, the stronger the computing power. However, increasing the number of qubits also brings higher error risks. If the error rate is too high, the computation becomes unreliable and produces erroneous results, making it difficult for quantum technology to achieve practical large-scale applications.
On December 9, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an X post that Willow is an important step in Google's pursuit of "practical quantum computing," with the technology having potential real-world applications in drug development, nuclear fusion energy, and battery design.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expressed admiration for Google's invention in response to Pichai's tweet. Pichai then replied that they would collaborate on quantum clusters for Starship in the future.
Challenges to Cryptocurrency Security? Divergent Views
Does Willow pose a threat to cryptocurrencies? The progress of quantum computing has long been seen as a potential turning point for the crypto industry. If quantum computers can crack current encryption algorithms, they could quickly expose user funds, posing a huge risk of theft. However, views on this issue are divided.
Entrepreneur and former Google senior product manager Kevin Rose said in a December 9 X post that Willow currently does not pose a threat to cryptocurrencies. Rose pointed out that cracking Bitcoin encryption is estimated to require a quantum computer with about 13 million qubits to complete the decryption in 24 hours. "In comparison, Google's Willow chip, although an important breakthrough, only has 105 qubits," he said.
Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer said this morning that the latest developments in quantum computing are indeed impressive, but at least for now they do not pose a threat to the security of cryptocurrencies. Current quantum computing is only suitable for performing a few types of tasks like integer factorization, and cannot reverse one-way hash functions. The design of mainstream blockchains, including BTC and Avalanche, has a certain degree of quantum resistance, with public key exposure time being relatively short, leaving little computational window for attackers. Therefore, quantum computing cannot threaten cryptocurrencies in the short term. In the future, when the quantum threat becomes real, blockchains like Avalanche can quickly add quantum-resistant signatures.
Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi also holds a similar view, citing a Metaculus report that the Shor algorithm is expected to be able to break RSA keys not until around 2040.
Another Bitcoin OG, Ben Sigman, also pointed out in his X platform post that Bitcoin users should not worry about this invention, stating that "cryptography is still secure... at least for now."
Nevertheless, Lightspark CEO David Marcus said he believes most people "have not fully grasped" the significance of Google's breakthrough. Marcus pointed out that this means "post-quantum cryptography and cryptography technology need to accelerate."
In fact, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has already proposed a method to mitigate the risk of quantum computing, explaining in a March X post that the problem can be solved simply through a hard fork. Buterin said blockchains need to hard fork, and users need to download new wallet software, with most users not losing their funds.
Quantum Computing and Bitcoin: Experts Suggest Freezing Satoshi's 1 Million BTC
The crucial proof-of-work (POW) mechanism in Bitcoin operations requires miners to solve complex mathematical problems to verify transactions and ensure network security. However, quantum computing, with its unprecedented computational speed, may threaten this balance.
Quantum algorithms like Grover's algorithm can theoretically solve these problems faster than traditional computers. This technology could therefore centralize mining power, undermining Bitcoin's decentralization principle.
According to estimates by University of Kent faculty member Dan A. Bard, if the Bitcoin network's hash rate grows at the same rate as the current value of quantum computing technology, following Moore's law, it will take about 27 years before a single quantum computer can completely surpass other miners and take control of the network.
Furthermore, Bitcoin's elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), a key technology protecting wallet addresses, also faces risks. Quantum computers may use Shor's algorithm to crack ECC in the future, exposing Bitcoin transactions to potential security vulnerabilities. This vulnerability is particularly concerning for well-known early addresses, including those held by Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
The aforementioned Emin Gün Sirer, in a reply to Haseeb's post, mentioned this more serious scenario: "Haseeb reminded me that Satoshi's 1 million BTC may indeed be vulnerable to quantum threats. The early Bitcoin used a very old Pay-To-Public-Key format, which leaks the public key and gives attackers time to study, the root of all crypto bounties. Modern Bitcoin wallets or Avalanche-like modern systems don't use P2P K, but it did exist in Bitcoin's early days. So as the quantum threat grows, the Bitcoin community may need to consider freezing Satoshi's 1 million BTC, or more broadly, provide an end-of-life date and freeze all BTC on P2P K UTXOs."
"Once the public key is revealed, Shor's algorithm adjusted for ECDSA can run in polynomial time on an ideal quantum computer to find the private key. In the traditional method, the process of finding the solution is super-polynomial, orders of magnitude slower... Polynomial time is potentially feasible, and researchers speculate that ECDSA will eventually be broken by quantum computers," wrote researchers at Acheron Trading.
At the same time, the Bitcoin community seems unlikely to shift from the proof-of-work (POW) mechanism to alternative consensus mechanisms like proof-of-stake (POS). Even cryptographer Adam Back stated that PoS cryptocurrencies lack the immutability, decentralization, and verifiable high production cost that are fundamental to Bitcoin.
"As a hard money, immutable, decentralized, and with verifiable cost of production. The technology is designed to make it economically stable, and actually quite hard to change. PoS coins don't have these properties, they have CEOs and dozens of competitors. Bitcoin has only one," Back said.
This resistance to change reflects the Bitcoin community's concern about the quantum threat and the importance of proactive measures to protect the Bitcoin network from future quantum attacks. Although the quantum computing threat has not yet fully materialized, proactive prevention measures are still key to safeguarding the Bitcoin network from future quantum attacks.
However, some others, including some quantum computer developers, believe that such concerns are unnecessary. By the time quantum computers become reliable and powerful enough to attack Bitcoin, blockchain developers will have already patched these vulnerabilities that can be cracked.
