Bitcoin (BTC) May Need a Costly and Time-Consuming Update to Protect Against Quantum Computing Threats

Bitcoin BTC/USD might need to undergo a costly and time-consuming update process to ward off the threat from quantum computing in the future

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) might need to undergo a costly and time-consuming update process to ward off the threat from quantum computing in the future, according to a report.

What Happened: A study, led by the University of Kent's School of Computing, estimated that a protocol update to protect Bitcoin from quantum computing threats would require taking the cryptocurrency offline for about 76 days — provided 100% of the bandwidth is committed to the process, Forbes reported.

However, if 25% of the bandwidth is allowed, which would enable users to continue mining and trading at a slower pace, the update would take nearly 305 days or 10 months.

In the scenario of 76 days of downtime, the update could cost around $912 million, the report estimated.

The more feasible 305-day downtime would lead to increased transaction fees and slower transaction confirmation times, leading to decreased market confidence.

The study found that Bitcoin had no other option but to replace the currently used cryptographic algorithm with the so-called "post-quantum" technology, which is immune to quantum attacks, and not doing so would be “devastating.”

Why It Matters: The increase in threat perception to Bitcoin’s encryption comes in the wake of Google’s new “Willow” quantum computing chip, which can perform computations in five minutes that would take supercomputers 10 septillion years to complete.

However, some experts believe that the threat to Bitcoin’s security is still a distant one. Himanshu Maradiya, the CEO of CIFDAQ, a blockchain ecosystem company, stated that the chip was “lightyears away” from breaking Bitcoin’s security.

Well-known technologist Jameson Lopp had said earlier that the inviolable properties of Bitcoin would eventually be violated.