Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, the world’s largest issuer of USDT, said that although it is still a long way to go for quantum computers to crack Bitcoin encryption, with the development of quantum computing technology, the 1 million Bitcoin wallet of “Father of Bitcoin” Satoshi Nakamoto will eventually be cracked and put back into circulation in the market. Venture capitalists called for early prevention.
Paolo shared his views on Twitter on Sunday (February 9), writing: “This is my prediction. Quantum computing is still very far away from posing a substantial risk to Bitcoin encryption. Before quantum computing poses a serious threat, Bitcoin will introduce quantum-resistant addresses.”
He continued: “Everyone who is still alive and has access to their wallets will move their bitcoins to new quantum-resistant addresses, but any bitcoins stored in lost wallets (including Satoshi’s bitcoins if he is no longer alive) will be cracked and put back into circulation.”
Previously, well-known venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted a warning that quantum computing will pose a risk to the first generation of encryption technology. The specific time is still unclear. This is not something that will happen in the short term, but if he is a large holder of Bitcoin, he will think this situation may happen and prepare in advance.
In December 2024, Google announced that its new generation chip Willow has successfully overcome the key challenges of quantum computing. The chip can perform calculations with 105 quantum bits (qubits). A problem that traditional computers originally took 1 billion years to solve can now be solved by the new chip in just 5 minutes.
This achievement was published in the scientific journal Nature and is regarded as a major milestone in the field of quantum computing. However, the progress in quantum computing has also raised concerns about the security of Bitcoin, because quantum computers may theoretically be able to crack encryption algorithms, especially the early Bitcoin addresses that used the Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) format.
It is worth noting that Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1 million bitcoins are stored in this format, so it may become a potential target of attack.
It is reported that P2PK is an early payment format of Bitcoin, which is characterized by directly exposing the public key. In traditional computing, it is almost impossible to derive the private key based on the public key, but the development of quantum computers may change this. Quantum computing can use the Shor algorithm to derive the private key from the public key, thereby obtaining the bitcoins in the relevant address.
Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, analyzed that because the bitcoins held by Satoshi Nakamoto use the early P2PK format, attackers may have ample time to crack them in the future. To avoid risks, he suggested that the Bitcoin community consider freezing the bitcoins held by Satoshi Nakamoto.
With the development and evolution of blockchain technology, the most common modern Bitcoin address uses the Pay-to-Public-Key-Hash (P2PKH) format, which only exposes the hashed public key and can relatively effectively resist quantum attacks. Therefore, early P2PK addresses are regarded as the most vulnerable link in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
