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Bad actors with access to a cryptography-breaking quantum computer probably won\u2019t try to announce it to the world by hacking Satoshi Nakamoto\u2019s high-profile Bitcoin wallets, crypto executives say.<\/p>\n
The first sign that quantum computing has broken modern cryptography probably won\u2019t be a splashy theft of Satoshi Nakamoto\u2019s dormant Bitcoin. It could just be a wave of unrelated crypto wallet breaches with no trace of how an attacker did it, according to the founder of blockchain startup Quantus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone cracks your key, you don\u2019t get a memo saying how they did it,\u201d Christopher Smith, CEO and co-founder of Quantus Network, told Cointelegraph. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive a private key from public keys exposed onchain, allowing an attacker to move funds without compromising a wallet, device or exchange\u2019s internal systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This makes the arrival of \u201cQ-day\u201d \u2014 a hypothetical future moment when quantum computers become powerful enough to break standard public-key cryptography \u2014 unusually difficult to detect. In a theft involving a highly secure organization, \u201cthe only forensic evidence would be that there was no breach,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n