Quantum Computer Fears: Satoshi’s Coins Trigger Market Anxiety
The possibility that Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin assets could be compromised by a quantum computer sparked a discussion on social media on Saturday. YouTuber Josh Otten posted a chart that showed Bitcoin plummeting to $3.00, sparking the argument. He asserted that if a sufficiently potent quantum computer is developed, this situation might come to pass. Otten claims that such a device might pilfer Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated one million Bitcoins and sell them.
Many OGs would buy the flash crash. The Bitcoin network would survive; most coins are not immediately vulnerable,
long-term Bitcoin holder Willy Woo
Quantum Computing Raises New Concerns for Early Bitcoin Addresses
Satoshi’s coins are among the approximately 4 million Bitcoins that are stored in pay-to-public-key (P2PK) addresses. According to Woo, these addresses are susceptible to quantum attacks since they reveal the entire public key on-chain when coins are spent. In essence, future quantum assaults are more likely when a Bitcoin wallet’s entire public key is made public on the chain. The secret key may possibly be extracted from the public key by a quantum computer with enough power. However, because they do not reveal whole public keys on-chain, more recent BTC wallet address types are less susceptible to quantum assaults. A quantum computer cannot produce the matching private key if the public key is unknown.
Is the Bitcoin Network Prepared for Future Quantum Challenges?
Technically speaking, the quantum threat is still mostly theoretical rather than real. Most experts concur that the elliptic curve cryptography used in Bitcoin cannot be broken at scale by contemporary quantum computers. The Bitcoin network might adapt through wallet migrations, protocol changes, and quantum-resistant signature schemes, even in the event that quantum capabilities develop quickly in the future. Potential soft forks that would enable users to transfer money from susceptible legacy addresses into safer ones have already been explored by developers. Because of this, the debate does not pose an immediate systemic risk, even while it raises a long-term security concern.
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