Frank Thelen paints a terrifying picture of a sudden crypto-collapse triggered by quantum computers. CoinShares' Bitcoin Research Lead Christopher Bendiksen comes to a different conclusion - for three reasons:
First, the vast majority of $BTC (-2,03 %)-addresses today are constructed in such a way that the public key is not visible. Even if quantum computers were able to crack individual keys, there would only be a tiny time window of around ten minutes in which a transaction hangs in the network. Bendiksen believes this is unrealistic, even over decades.
Secondly, only a small, clearly definable part of the supply is actually at risk - especially old pay-to-public key addresses. This affects around eight percent of all coins, of which only a fraction (around ten thousand Bitcoin) would be relevant to the market in the short term. Even with extremely optimistic assumptions about quantum progress, an attacker could only work off the rest over many decades.
Thirdly, Bitcoin is adaptable. A soft fork could introduce quantum-resistant signatures and new address types to which users could gradually migrate. For Bendiksen, Bitcoin is therefore not a victim of quantum technology - but a system facing a long-term engineering problem that can be solved.
