Galaxy Digital Pledges $5 Million for Bitcoin Quantum Defense
Galaxy Digital has pledged up to $5 million to protect Bitcoin from quantum computers that could potentially crack its cryptography. The risk of a quantum computer breaking into Bitcoin's digital signatures, known as ECDSA, is considered real by experts.
The threat arises because nearly a third of all Bitcoin already has its public key exposed on the chain, making it vulnerable to a quantum codebreaker. However, estimates for when this vulnerability could be exploited range from five years to 40 years, according to Blockstream's Adam Back.
Bitcoin developers are aware of the threat and have proposed solutions, including adding wallet address types that protect future coins. However, one proposal would retire coins with old signatures, which is contentious because it would reject property rights of dormant holders.