Crypto and the blockchain are regarded by many as among the most important tech developments of the last few years. However, there’s a threat looming on the horizon that could undo all the developments they’ve created and fostered and do so in one fell swoop as well: quantum computing. The potential innovations this tech could bring are somewhat overshadowed in the crypto community by the chaos quantum could cause. Essentially, it could be used to break the codes that keep cryptocurrencies safe, decrypting public keys to obtain private ones and enabling hackers to gain access to billions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrencies.
If you’re an investor, you’re much more likely to be focused on things such as the price performance of pairs such as ETH/BTC, the best strategies on how to buy Ethereum, the engagement rates, volumes, and macroeconomic factors that could end up impacting the marketplace in the near future. However, developers are already making plans for how things will change so that they aren’t caught unprepared when the change happens.
The Ethereum Foundation
Ethereum is known as one of the most innovative cryptocurrencies out there, continuously focused on development. It is home to continuous upgrades, and it is a pioneer in fields such as decentralized finance and applications, developing and adopting them far ahead of other platforms. As such, investors are not at all surprised that they were also among the first to announce the development of a comprehensive and customized quantum strategy.
The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to ensure the growth and development of the native blockchain while ensuring that it remains decentralized as well, has made post-quantum security the focus of its long-term roadmap, announcing that it is creating a Post Quantum team to oversee these tasks. The team will be led by Thomas Coratger, who has so far operated as a cryptographic engineer at the Ethereum Foundation. The Foundation declared that quantum security is a priority for the environment, meaning that funds, resources, and research will go towards ensuring a comprehensive strategy is implemented.
The plans
While quantum computing is generally understood to still be about two decades away from having the potential to wreak havoc on the crypto world, being prepared can never hurt, especially in the case of an emerging technology that is new to the market. Ethereum has already discussed the necessity of implementing several steps in the near future in order to prepare the ecosystem. Blockchains are inherently vulnerable due to the particulars of their infrastructures; in order to ensure that they withstand the challenges, they require fundamental changes and upgrades.
Biweekly developer sessions are set to start soon, and they will focus on protections for users, account abstraction, and their respective pathways, as well as the aggregation of transaction signatures with the help of leanVM. There’s also been a push for new funding, with $2 million worth of initiatives, both aimed at advancing cryptography in the post-quantum ecosystem. Multi-client consensus development networks are already going live, with several teams involved in interoperability. The Ethereum Foundation is also set to host a post-quantum event around October, followed by another one in March 2027. Education will be invested in as well, with video content and materials aimed at enterprises currently in the making.
Large-scale efforts
While the threat of quantum computing still seems far away, companies and exchanges are not naïve about the issues that it could bring. A large crypto exchange recently announced that it is forming a board that could assess quantum risk and determine which markets would be most severely impacted in the case of a hypothetical attack. It established an independent advisory board as part of these efforts in order to evaluate the advances that the technology makes and determine the full scope of the impact it could have on the security of the largest blockchain networks.
It's not just crypto industry experts that will be part of the board, but members of academia and experts from the quantum computing and cryptography sectors. Representatives from the field of blockchain security will participate as well, with the findings of everyone’s research set to be published and become easily accessible for everyone, from the developers to the users. However, there will be a while until the findings are released, with the earliest expected date being sometime during the first months of 2027.
The impact of quantum
A quantum computer that is powerful enough has the potential to compromise the entire security of the blockchain by deriving and revealing private keys and making them accessible to unauthorized users. Bitcoin, as the most noteworthy asset and the one that is most visible, is frequently discussed in this context, but the current estimations indicate that it would take billions of stable qubits in order to break BTC’s cryptographic security, a feature that is simply not possible at the moment. However, that doesn’t mean that it won’t ever be feasible, especially given the fast pace at which tech developments are evolving nowadays.
Modern crypto coins are heavily reliant on cryptographic algorithms for their digital signatures. To support hashing, BTC utilizes SHA-256 while ETH uses Keccak-256. Both of them could theoretically be broken if the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem is solved. Private keys are the pillar of crypto ownership, security, and privacy. In their absence, the ecosystem simply cannot exist. They grant full control over digital assets, so anyone who owns them has the ability to authorize transactions and transfer funds. And while quantum’s current capabilities don’t make it an immediate threat, the potential for exposure is considerable.
The “harvest now, break later” strategy is concerning as well, as it involves storing public keys now to use them later, after quantum has become commonplace and computers are powerful enough to facilitate hackers’ plans. This is particularly noteworthy in the case of reused addresses or when public keys are exposed during transaction broadcasting.
To sum up, the crypto world continues to move faster and expand, but it is imperative to be aware of the larger changes that could have a negative impact on the market as well. While they can seem like too far away to be concerning at the moment, they could still negate crypto’s fundamental purpose of being an asset that can be used forever.
