In March of this year, a team of Google published a study according to which to decipher the protection of Bitcoin would be achieved with a quantum computer about 20 times smaller than what was calculated in 2023. Just a month later, the first “break” of a key with a real quantum computer was celebrated as a milestone, although the key in question was tiny compared to those of Bitcoin and other developers immediately proved that the same result was obtained with randomly chosen numbers.
With warnings that also add artificial intelligence as a possible accelerator, the saver who has already endured falls of more than 70% has the right to wonder if this is a new chapter of FUD (acronym for fear, uncertainty and doubt) or a risk capable of destroying the value of their investment. In it Pocket Finance Today we will see how much truth there is in each threat and what different communities are doing to confront them.
The funds of Bitcoin They are protected by cryptographic conditions that determine who can spend them. In the most common case, a private key is involved, which allows operations to be authorized, and a public key, which is used to verify the corresponding signatures. If the private key works like the key to a safe, the public key looks like the blueprint of the lock: anyone can see it, but with today’s computers, reconstructing the key from that blueprint would take more time than the age of the universe.
A large enough quantum computer (a machine that takes advantage of particle physics to solve problems that are intractable for a typical computer) could calculate the private key from the public key in minutes or days. But be careful: in the most used address formats, what is recorded in the blockchain It is a mathematical summary of the public key (technically, a hash), and the key itself is only revealed when the owner spends those funds.
Other formats, however, leave it visible from the first moment. Unfortunately, a significant portion of the offering already has its public key exposed. The most cited estimates place around 30% bitcoins in that situation, either because of the format in which they are stored or because their owners reused addresses, and that group includes the coins attributed to Satoshi Nakamotothe anonymous creator of the network (between 600,000 and 1.7 million bitcoins, depending on who does the counting).
An attack of this type would mainly target signatures, the mechanism that demonstrates that whoever moves the coins is authorized to do so. Hash functions, on which mining and a good part of addresses are based, face a much lower quantum threat, although that does not leave funds with a hidden key completely safe: while an operation waits to be confirmed, the public key remains visible and a sufficiently fast machine could try to get ahead.
The most advanced quantum computers handle a few dozen logical qubits (the error-protected units of calculation), and the attack estimated by Google It takes more than 1,200 working non-stop for millions of steps.
As for the artificial intelligenceAt the beginning of October, Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, proposed that in the short term (he spoke of “months and not years”) he could find a mathematical shortcut to break these keys without going through a quantum computer. Coinbase’s head of crypto called it FUD without evidence, and Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, asked not to rush. For now there is no scientific work that shows AI weakening the mathematics that protects Bitcoin. Where AI does worry is in another area: in controlled tests it showed increasing effectiveness in finding and exploiting flaws in programs, wallets and smart contracts (programs that execute automatic operations on a blockchain). The concrete losses are there today: the nearly US$3.4 billion stolen in the crypto ecosystem during 2025 came from human errors and operational security failures, without the cryptography being broken in any case.
Photo: Canva.
The problem is that defenses take years. Resource estimates for an attack go down with each release, while migrating all bitcoins to more secure formats could demand between 76 and 568 days of network capacity according to Chaincode Labs, and that is once the mechanism to do so exists, something that has not yet been approved.
In August 2024, NIST (the United States standards institute) published the first post-quantum signature systems, that is, resistant to these computers. Its disadvantage is its size, dozens of times larger than the current ones (and therefore more expensive in commissions). In Bitcoin, the most advanced proposal is the BIP-360 (BIP is the acronym for Bitcoin Improvement Proposal). Bitcoin), incorporated as a draft in February, which creates a new format that does not expose the vulnerable public key and would open the door to adding post-quantum signatures.
Much more controversial is BIP-361, which proposes freezing, after a period of time, currencies that do not migrate. For its defenders, it is the only way to prevent the first person with a capable machine from keeping Satoshi’s coins; For its detractors, it is a confiscation that breaks the central promise of the network, according to which no one can dispose of other people’s funds. As long as that discussion remains open, Bitcoin hardly accelerate. Ethereum has more exposed funds (more than 65% according to a Deloitte analysis, because its accounts reveal the public key from the first transaction they sign), but it moves faster. In January, its foundation assembled a dedicated team, set a goal of 2029 to protect its core infrastructure, and scheduled an upgrade (EIP-8141) for the planned upgrade in 2027 that will allow each account to choose a robust signature system. Bitcoin, on the other hand, still has no calendar. [La Nación/GDA]
The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto
The wallet with the largest amount of Bitcoins belongs to the enigmatic creator of the cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto. It is estimated to contain around one million BTC, a colossal sum that has remained completely dormant since Satoshi’s disappearance in 2011. The uncertainty over whether these Bitcoins will ever be moved or used adds an air of mystery to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The risk that Satoshi Nakamoto will return and decide to sell those Bitcoins is a constant concern among investorsas the impact on the market could be devastating, causing an abrupt drop in the price of Bitcoin. However, many analysts believe that if Satoshi really intended to sell, he would have done so long ago, or that the creator may have taken steps to avoid significantly disrupting the market.
Therefore, although the possibility cannot be completely ruled out, it is considered by many to be an unlikely threat in the short term. Furthermore, it is estimated that around 20% of existing Bitcoins are lost forever, due to forgotten passwords, damaged devices or inaccessible wallets. This means that more than four million BTC can never be recovered, effectively reducing the total supply of the cryptocurrency and accentuates its scarcity. This phenomenon underlines the crucial importance of learning how to safely custody your Bitcoin holdings. Using hardware wallets is an effective way to protect your cryptocurrencies.
Source: www.elpais.com.uy
