Bitcoin Will Adapt to Quantum Computing

How quantum computing will play out with Bitcoin

Google's news this week about a technological advance in quantum computing created a lot of FUD about its impact on Bitcoin. While Google's new Willow chip is still years, if not decades, away from impacting Bitcoin, it raises a legitimate question: What will quantum computing do to Bitcoin?

Short answer: Bitcoin will adapt.

Quantum computing will not arrive tomorrow. It will take time. Research is already investigating ways to address quantum computing in Bitcoin.

Signatures

Recall that security in Bitcoin happens on two levels: within transactions and between transactions. Inside transactions, digital signatures protect the locking and unlocking of coins. They are the foremost line of defense within Bitcoin. Bitcoin's digital signature algorithm requires a signature for any user to spend her Bitcoins. All nodes on the network can verify that the user has this signature, without knowing what that signature is. Historically, Bitcoin has used ECDSA, but since Taproot (Bitcoin's last major upgrade in 2021), Bitcoin has used Schnorr signatures, which uses hash functions and are conceptually simpler and more private than ECDSA.