Cryptocurrency May Become Primary Target of Quantum Computing Attacks, Governance Speed Poses Greatest Risk

TechFlow news, July 27, according to CoinDesk, Eddy Zervigon, CEO of quantum computing security infrastructure company Quantum Xchange, stated that cryptocurrencies, due to their decentralized nature, will become the "canary in the coal mine" for quantum computing attacks—that is, the area where vulnerabilities will be exposed first. The latest assessment by Google researchers shows that the number of physical qubits required to crack Bitcoin's elliptic curve encryption has decreased 20-fold compared to previous estimates, and multiple institutions have moved the expected "Q-Day" (the day quantum computers can crack existing encryption systems) forward to 2029. Deutsche Digital Assets pointed out that the real risk is not the encryption technology itself, but lies in the speed of governance—Bitcoin upgrades require 90% miner consensus, which has historically triggered hard forks (such as the 2017 SegWit upgrade leading to the birth of Bitcoin Cash), whereas traditional financial institutions only need a board resolution to complete encryption infrastructure migration. Additionally, experts remind that the quantum threat is not a binary event that "suddenly arrives on a certain day"; even if quantum computers need months to crack data, as long as the cracking is completed while the data is still valuable, the threat is established.