Bitcoin faces a growing quantum threat as Google's new research shows future quantum computers could break Bitcoin's core cryptography in under 9 minutes. This is faster than the average block settlement time, raising alarms about potential attacks as early as 2029.

The stakes are massive - about 6.5 million $BTC worth hundreds of billions of dollars sits in addresses vulnerable to quantum attacks. This includes coins belonging to Satoshi Nakamoto and threatens Bitcoin's core principles of trustless code and sound money.

Several key proposals are being developed to address this threat. BIP 360 would remove public keys permanently from the blockchain by introducing Pay-to-Merkle-Root addresses. SPHINCS+ offers post-quantum signatures based on hash functions, though they're much larger than current signatures. Tadge Dryja's commit/reveal scheme adds an emergency brake for mempool transactions, while Hourglass V2 would limit spending of old vulnerable coins to one per block.

These upgrades aren't activated yet, but the steady flow of proposals shows developers have been preparing for this threat for years. While implementation will take time due to Bitcoin's decentralized governance, the proactive approach may help calm market concerns about quantum computing risks.

, ,