Bitcoin can be hacked in 2027, Sydney scientists suggest

The science team at the University of Technology Sydney's Centre for Quantum Software and Information tells about a very distressing situation that might emerge once quantum computers become widespread.

Quantum computers are still at their dawn, but in the year 2027, they will evolve enough to become capable of hacking modern cryptographic means which cryptocurrencies have installed. The paper dedicated to this called Quantum Attacks on Bitcoin and How to Protect Against Them has been published online at the beginning of this month, but went largely unnoticed by the cryptocurrency community.

What could be done today to prevent threats of tomorrow? The researchers offer developing PoW (Proof-of-Work) methods which will protect blockchains from at least some attacks, and changing HashCash technology, which Bitcoin currently uses, either to Momentum, Cuckoo Cycle or Equihash. And this is not enough: post-quantum cryptographic algorithms need to be invented as soon as possible, so if you happen to be a genius who already did this, do the Bitcoin community a favor and release this tech.

Google, by the way, will soon launch its own very first quantum computer, which potentially can operate so fast that the same operations would take billions and billions of years for the regular PC.