Mochimo Official · Follow Feb 2
· 3 min read
Every day there is more and more content discussing the potential of quantum computers breaking Bitcoin’s encryption.Just a few days ago coinmarketcap launched an official category for quantum secured projects.I believe that over the next few months we will see more and more quantum resistant blockchains launch.I recently took the time to respond to a news outlets sourcing request on the topic, and while my response was not featured in the final article I am publishing my thoughts here.
) How likely is it that quantum computers will be able to break Bitcoin’s encryption? It is not a matter of if, but when Quantum computers will break Bitcoin’s encryption.
While many people in the crypto community dismiss this issue as “FUD”, there is a strong consensus in the cybersecurity community.In a recent survey, Cambridge Quantum asked 600 cybersecurity professionals across the public and private sector for their predictions on when quantum computing will break current encryption.80% of respondents said they believed an attack could come “without warning” in the next 2–3 years .
One of our advisors is a guy named Alexei Marchenkov.He runs Bleximo, a Draper backed startup, and he’s literally a Ph.D.
quantum physicist.His company creates purpose-built quantum computing ASICs, as opposed to general purpose quantum computers.Speaking with Alexei in 2018, he said he believes it will take about 4 to 5 years from now before QC ASICs can break things like ECDSA.
2.) What would the consequences be if it was broken?
There will be serious consequences for Bitcoin and other blockchain ecosystems.Once ECDSA, the encryption used by Bitcoin and most other blockchains, is broken the attacker could generate the private key to any known public key on the ledger.
Because of this even if there was some attempt to move to quantum secured encryption it would be almost impossible to determine the rightful owner of any given address.The attacker could spend millions of Bitcoin freely, from the top dormant addresses to the cold wallets of top exchanges.It would render Bitcoin and any other crypto using non quantum secure technology effectively worthless.
3.) What steps are being taken to prevent this?
There have been no real attempts to migrate Bitcoin to quantum secured encryption.
Doing so would also not be as simple as pushing out a new update to the network.It would require a hard fork as well as every user registering a new address under the updated signature scheme.As the quantum arms race ramps up there will be dozens of attempts to fork the code and serious fragmenting across the entire community.
In 2017 I started working with an international team to create the world’s first quantum secured blockchain, Mochimo.Mochimo uses WOTS+ encryption technology recommended by the EU’s PQ-CRYPTO and the IETF to protect the network against quantum computing based attacks.Our unique tag system will also allow users to implement other encryption algorithms in the future completely seamlessly.We also permanently solve many issues plaguing modern blockchains, such as centralization, network bloat, high fees and slow transactions.
To learn more, visit https://mochimo.org/ , and for the latest guide on how to buy Mochimo click here ..
