In the company’s employees’ report ARK Invest under the name «Bitcoin and quantum computing» SpecifiedHow much BTC can be stolen using quantum computers?
Experts estimate that 6,9 million bitcoins are at risk of theft. worth $494 billion at the current exchange rate, which includes:
- 7 million coins worth $121,7 billion stored in vulnerable crypto wallets whose owners have likely lost access to them;
- 2 million digital assets worth $372,3 billion stored in crypto vaults, from which BTC can be transferred to secure wallets.
BTC at risk of theft using quantum computers
Employees from Google, IBM, Microsoft, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology predict that the first quantum computers powerful enough to crack cryptographic vaults will appear in 2035. These could include devices from PsiQuantum, currently installed at an industrial complex in Chicago that is currently under construction. As the editorial team reported Happy Coin News, enterprise capacity should make up 1 million qubits, which is enough for a successful attack on the BTC network and other cryptocurrencies.
However, a minority of skeptics believe that a quantum threat to digital assets will only materialize 80 years after the first quantum computer was developed in 1998. In this case, Bitcoins could be stolen no earlier than 2078. This estimate is based on the belief that a quantum computer’s power increase would take the same number of years as the performance of conventional hardware.