Experts say that nearly 33% of the supply of Bitcoin (BTC) is quickly vulnerable to potential quantum computing attacks. In particular, the main perpetrator identified is the broad habit of reusing the address.
The revelation could put cryptocurrency under threat from quantum computing amid growing concern over the lack of encryption after mass photography.
Quantum Computing and Bitcoin: How Address Reuse Increases Vulnerability
Speaking at the Quantum Bitcoin Summit, hosted by Presidio Bitcoin, Dr. Anthony Milton, explained that 6.51 million Bitcoin (approximately 32.7% of total supply) is quickly quantum vulnerable.
Of these, 70% are vulnerable due to reuse. Reusing addresses exposes a large amount of 4.5 million bitcoins to quantum risk.
Furthermore, his analysis showed that less than 20% of addresses were reused. However, these addresses hold about 6% of all UTXOS (unused transaction output).
UTXO refers to the portion of a Bitcoin transaction that the user has not yet spent. It essentially represents the amount of bitcoin remaining after a transaction is created. Therefore, this amount can be used in future transactions.
“The majority is a single use. This is a good thing. But when people reuse addresses, they actively reuse them, right?
Milton also evaluated the top 1000 Bitcoin addresses, which hold 30% of the total supply of Bitcoin. He concluded that many of these addresses will be reused again, and that only adds to quantum vulnerability.
“Binance has many addresses in the top 1,000 representing 600,000 bitcoins, with around 500,000 addresses being reused,” Milton pointed out.
Despite the risks, Anthony noted that many reused addresses are engaged in trading regularly. This means that these coins are still available for spending. Furthermore, only a small portion of the reused addresses have not been traded for more than 10 years.
Additionally, other experts emphasized that quantum computing poses a long-term threat to Bitcoin, but that is not a problem for the time being.
why? Quantum computers are still unable to perform tasks such as mining and destroying Bitcoin’s cryptographic security.
“Experts say that fault-resistant quantum computing (FTQC) is still five to ten years later (under the aggressive timeline). Once it arrives, it gets faster like a phase transition,” added Presidio Bitcoin.
Therefore, quantum computing remains a major issue, but it is important to note that address reuse is not a flaw in Bitcoin’s own encryption, but a user’s operational habit.
The good news is that this problem can be solved. Users can use new addresses per transaction, enable address rotation, consider multi-signature wallets, and continue updating protocol updates for quantum resistance.
As this habit first appeared, almost 33% of Bitcoin supply is vulnerable to quantum attacks.
