Blockstream Unveils SHRINCS to Shield Bitcoin from Quantum Threats
Blockstream, a leading infrastructure firm for Bitcoin, has unveiled a technical proposal called SHRINCS to protect against quantum computer threats. The system is designed by Jonas Nick and Mikhail Kudinov and aims to preserve the network's processing capacity.
The underlying problem in the industry is that Bitcoin uses digital signatures based on elliptic curve cryptography, which could be vulnerable to attacks from powerful quantum computers running Shor's algorithm.
Blockstream estimated that implementing post-quantum signatures standardized by NIST would severely compromise the network's processing capacity, dropping it to 0.36 transactions per second. In contrast, SHRINCS raises this capacity to approximately three transactions per second.