Nine crypto companies have formed the Quantum Alliance, an alliance preparing the industry for quantum computers. According to CoinDesk, there is disagreement on two issues: when such machines will threaten bitcoin and whether it is allowed to freeze vulnerable coins.
- Nine companies, including The Vault, Quantus and Hacken, announced the Quantum Alliance on October 16. It is to publish common tests and guidelines for the transition to cryptography resistant to quantum computers.
- According to the alliance, the public keys of 6.04 million BTC, or 30.2 percent of the supply, are visible on the network. This is a potential exposure because today’s computers cannot extract private keys from them.
- Members have different assessments of the date of the threat, ranging from 2028 to no date at all. The two members cited are against freezing vulnerable coins. Changpeng Zhao had previously suggested freezing Satoshi’s coins.
What Quantum Alliance does
Standards for cryptography resistant to quantum computers have existed since August 2024, when the American institute NIST approved the first of them. The Alliance wants to prepare tests to check whether the networks use them.
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6.04 million BTC with visible key
The public key is the equivalent of an account number that can be shown. Today, it is impossible to calculate the private key that signs transfers from it. A quantum computer could reverse this path. There is no such machine yet.
Dispute about 2028 and freezing coins
Richard Carback of Postquant Labs considers 2028 a realistic year for a machine that could break today’s cryptography. Bryn Bennett of The Vault says no one knows the date and estimates keep getting shorter. Other researchers place the threat in the 1930s, writes Bitcoin.com.
Freezing would mean that no one could touch such coins, including the owner. Bennett is against it. According to him, this is a precedent for property rights, and the decision belongs to the management of the Bitcoin network, not to the industry. Carback prefers to transfer vulnerable coins and proposes a trust where the owner recovers the funds upon proof of ownership. Previously, Changpeng Zhao suggested freezing Satoshi’s coins if they are lying untouched. Jameson Lopp proposed restrictions for vulnerable coins, reminds CoinDesk.
Christopher Smith, head of Quantus, sees a different kind of risk. In his opinion, the vulnerable coins will be taken by the first person to obtain a machine capable of attacking. It will probably do so with the consent of the government of a given country.
Migration also costs money. The new signatures will take up more block space, notes CoinDesk. This may increase fees or reduce the number of transactions in a block.
What does this mean for a bitcoin holder?
No one will order every holder to transfer funds, reminds Bitcoin.com. So what matters is your own address. The public key appears on the network during the first transfer from the address. If you use one address multiple times, you permanently reveal it. A new address for each deposit reduces this risk, and you decide about your own wallet addresses.
For now, the alliance has nine members and no common date.
