Viewpoint: The greatest threat of quantum computing is not against Bitcoin private keys; the financial system is facing a "gather first, decrypt later" risk

BlockBeats News, May 30th - Andrew Gault, Founding Partner of deep tech investment firm 7percent Ventures and CEO of networking company ZeroTier, stated that the market is overly focused on the threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin wallet private keys, while overlooking a more imminent risk — the encrypted communication data currently being transmitted between financial institutions.

Gault pointed out that attackers are employing a "collect now, decrypt later" strategy, mass storing encrypted data such as interbank communications, payment authentication records, and digital signatures, waiting for future quantum computers with sufficient capabilities to decrypt. He believes that the real danger lies not in statically stored data, but in the authentication and signature information flowing daily between exchanges, custodians, cross-chain bridges, and financial institutions.

In March of this year, Google's quantum AI team released a study stating that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer in the future could derive Bitcoin private keys from public keys in about 9 minutes, raising concerns in the market about the security of approximately 6.9 million exposed public key BTC. However, Gault believes that the more pressing issue is the currently collected network communication data.

Google's security team has shifted its focus to digital signatures and identity authentication systems, planning to complete post-quantum cryptography migration by 2029. Google stated that the "collect now, decrypt later" attack has now become a real threat.

Furthermore, a study by Citigroup in February of this year estimated that if quantum computing were to breach the encryption of large U.S. banks accessing the Fedwire payment system, it could cause an economic impact of $20 trillion to $33 trillion, equivalent to a 10% to 17% decline in the actual U.S. GDP.

Reports indicate that while Ethereum has initiated a coordinated post-quantum migration plan, the Bitcoin network, as well as major crypto exchanges and custodians, have not publicly committed to similar upgrades to their signature infrastructure. Analysts believe that as quantum computing technology continues to advance, the crypto industry may face greater pressure for a post-quantum security transformation in the future.