Is Quantum Computing threatening Bitcoin faster than expected? On Wednesday, Microsoft announced its first quantum computing chip, called “Majorana 1.” The tech community has long speculated about Google's next-generation quantum efforts, and while it is often referred to as “Willow,” Microsoft's announcement focused on looming questions.
Microsoft said Majorana 1 is leveraging a new topology core architecture designed to bring quantum computing from labs to real-world applications that mean “for years, not decades” It's claiming. Chip's unique design is reportedly allowing Quantum Systems to operate in a more stable state for longer than previous generations.
According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the company's roadmap points to 1 million kit devices between 2027 and 2029. This is a lot of people in this field who think it is necessary to address “industrial scale” computational tasks.
Is Bitcoin at risk?
While most financial institutions rely on layered security systems, I suspect that Bitcoin's reliance on public key encryption could be a more simple target for quantum attacks. It's there. Bitcoin-focused financial platform River has alarmed on the recent X thread“A million qubits could crack BTC addresses.” They warned that “Mayorana 1 chips are far from their size at the moment, but could reach the 1 million mark by 2027-2029.”
River's analysis shows that 1.3-300 million cubit (stabilized) devices could theoretically destroy Bitcoin addresses within hours, putting up to 5.9 million BTC at risk. It was suggested. While quantum computers today aren't close to that capability, River emphasizes that Microsoft's achievements shorten the overall timeline.
“If you run for days or weeks, a million Qubit QCs could crack Bitcoin addresses via long-range attacks. […] More realistically, to carry out a long-range attack in 1-8 hours, you need 1.3-300 million cubits of QC. If achieved, this will be a risk of 5.9 million BTC for the time being. Remember, today's best QCs only have 1,000 qubits. Still, this breakthrough shortens the timeline and makes Bitcoin quantum resistant,” River writes.
River CEO Alexander Leishman; I'll emphasize it In X's post, BTC's unique setup could be exposed directly by quantum threats compared to banks and other centralized entities. “Access to a public key equals access to money,” he said. He pointed out that traditional banking systems rely on many layers of protection. Even if Quantum Hardware rendered deprecation of HTTPS encryption, Leishman pointed out that hackers still have to overcome additional firewalls, authentication protocols, and in-person security checks to violate the bank.
In contrast, once the Bitcoin public key is revealed (as happens when BTC is sent from address), a sufficiently powerful quantum computer can run the appropriate algorithm for a sufficient amount of time, and It may bypass the private key. Leishman admitted he was “sceptical, a short-term issue,” but emphasized that ignoring quantum threats could be myopic.
“Quantum computers can't magically access all Goldman Sachs money. They can magically access billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Again, this threat will run quickly. I don't think it's possible, but it's important to discuss the issue honestly,” he argues.
Prominent Bitcoin commentator Preston Pisch took part in the discussion via X, asking if the community would “prioritize engineering quantum resistance addresses,” and calling the BIP-360 (the proposed P2QRH framework). I pointed it out. Pysh suggested that this proposal could be enacted through a soft fork. This is usually a way to allow backward compatibility while adding new features to the Bitcoin protocol.
Leishman agreed that securing Bitcoin against quantum attacks should be a priority, but he called for a hurry to fix it. “We shouldn't rush anything,” he said, informing us that we prefer careful research and consensus building between Bitcoin core developers and the wider community.
At the time of pressing, BTC traded for $98,337.
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