Threats of Quantum Computing: Big Trouble for Bitcoin, Little Impact on Ethereum

Author: David Hoffman

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

“If Bitcoin falls, cryptocurrency will also be doomed.”

Bitcoin supporters love this statement deeply.

My friend Nic Carter recently revived the old chestnut of the idea that Bitcoin is the center of the cryptocurrency universe, with everything else merely revolving around it like celestial bodies.

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This statement seems to be a stubborn tone in the discussions among Bitcoin supporters, where from time to time a Bitcoin supporter will tweet to reaffirm this viewpoint in response to some emerging hot topics. Subsequently, other Bitcoin supporters flock to like this tweet until its popularity reaches “escape velocity.”

However, this general viewpoint is incorrect, and it can only come from those who believe that Bitcoin is the center of the cryptocurrency universe.

This Bitcoin-centered perspective is as primitive and backward as the geocentric theory. It is important to clarify that in our solar system, other planets do not revolve around the Earth.

From a basic principle perspective, Ethereum and Bitcoin have no technical dependency on each other. As a protocol, Ethereum is completely indifferent to the existence of Bitcoin.

Even if Bitcoin stops producing blocks, for Ethereum, the literal meaning is that “nothing will happen.”

A stablecoin market worth $165 billion, a decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem of $65 billion, $55 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) burned each year, and countless startups, venture capital industries, and developer markets - all of this is the unique result of Ethereum's nurturing, and they will continue to operate as usual the next day.

This is exactly the original intention of Ethereum.

The threat of quantum computing

In the past week, discussions about the risks that quantum computing poses to Bitcoin have heated up again. Scott Aaronson, regarded as a top quantum researcher, wrote on his blog Shtetl-Optimized:

Given the astonishing speed of current hardware advancements, I now believe that before the next U.S. presidential election, we might have a fault-tolerant quantum computer capable of running the Shor algorithm.

Since the birth of Bitcoin, this has been a topic of discussion – people have long known that the ECDSA signatures used by most early Bitcoin wallets cannot withstand quantum attacks, and that Bitcoin private keys will eventually be compromised by quantum computers, leading to the theft of their Bitcoins by attackers.

In his recent podcast, Nick even mentioned that some of the negative performance of Bitcoin's price may be related to the market already pricing in quantum risks.

The key point to remember here is that this is a problem that Bitcoin needs to solve completely. Ethereum has long been protected against this type of attack that Bitcoin is currently anxious about.

From the beginning, Ethereum has concealed the public key through an address (keccak-256 hash), which means that your public key will not be exposed before you spend, significantly reducing the attack surface for quantum attackers.

In addition, since The Merge, Ethereum has shifted to a validator model, and the withdrawal keys have also been hidden behind hashes. More importantly, Ethereum's roadmap clearly outlines plans to replace ECDSA signatures with quantum-safe signature schemes (such as BLS variants or post-quantum cryptographic alternatives) through future upgrades (such as Verkle trees and EOF layer restructuring).

The culture of Ethereum has always been highly forward-looking—sometimes it may even seem overly advanced, as other ecosystems often take shortcuts to exploit Ethereum's short-term weaknesses. But when it comes to addressing the issue of quantum threats, Ethereum is certainly not in that position!

In the face of quantum threats to blockchain security, Ethereum has chosen to confront the challenge, fully aware that quantum computing will one day become ubiquitous.

Default Internet Currency

“If Bitcoin disappears, people will no longer trust internet currencies.”

That's not the case.

The demise of Bitcoin will undoubtedly create a vacuum of trust in the short term, but the demand and value that Ethereum satisfies will not disappear because of this. In fact, this event may provide an opportunity for Ethereum to demonstrate its long-term resilience.

I truly hope that Bitcoin can overcome the quantum threat, but I also believe that the demise of the “number one currency” in the cryptocurrency space could greatly benefit the “number two currency”.

Bitcoin has a huge monetary premium, while Ethereum also has a certain monetary premium. If Bitcoin exits this equation, then Ethereum will have a clear path to becoming the native currency of the internet. From the perspective of someone who only cares about the value of ETH, the extinction of Bitcoin due to quantum threats could be the most beneficial event for ETH.

Ethereum will continue to produce blocks, transfer trillions of dollars in stablecoins, host the most resilient DeFi ecosystem in the world, and continuously optimize its economic model by burning ETH.

Therefore, although Bitcoin faces an “unimaginably huge task,” which is “the largest infrastructure transformation in Bitcoin's history” (quoted from Nick Carter in his recent podcast), Ethereum has been thinking about these issues for a decade and is prepared with solutions for the future.

Therefore, the technical shortcomings of Bitcoin are not my problem.

Thank you for your attention to this issue.