Quantum computing and Bitcoin: moving beyond fear.
Quantum computers will hack Bitcoin.
This statement is intended to frighten, not explain.
Quantum technology does exist, but not in the way that sensationalist headlines suggest.
Real quantum computers are fragile, noisy and unstable prototypes.
They work with qubits that lose information in microseconds and require substantial error correction.
Breaking the cryptographic signatures used by Bitcoin would require millions of reliable physical qubits.
Currently, there is not a single perfectly stable logical qubit.
There is no real mathematical threat.
Even if such a machine were to exist one day, Bitcoin would not be the first target.
Strategic technologies are used first where they really matter:
Intelligence, military communications, diplomacy, banking systems and critical infrastructure, for example.
Hacking Bitcoin would reveal to the world a weapon capable of changing the geopolitical balance.
This would make no sense.
Furthermore, Bitcoin is not as exposed as people believe.
Addresses do not display the public key.
Only UTXOs that have already been spent reveal it, and then only for a very limited time.
The network can update its cryptographic primitives, and a BIP path for post-quantum signatures already exists.
Bitcoin is a living protocol that can evolve when needed.
Compromising a UTXO would require time, silence, and significant computing power.
None of these are realistically possible today.
Fear arises where there is a lack of knowledge.
Quantum computing is fascinating, but it is far from being an 'almighty machine'.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, is a social asset built on verifiable and updatable rules.
Don't you worry, child.
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