Bitcoin and Quantum Computing: Nic Carter Explains the Threat and What To Do Next

Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics, asserts that quantum computing poses the most significant long-term threat to Bitcoin's core cryptography, specifically the elliptic-curve math underpinning ECDSA and Schnorr signatures. He explains that this cryptography relies on the one-way nature of deriving a public key from a private key, a process quantum computers could potentially reverse by solving the discrete logarithm problem. Carter notes that routine spending exposes public keys on-chain, which is currently safe but becomes riskier as quantum capabilities advance, especially with address reuse. He advises immediate, practical steps: in the near term, users should practice good hygiene like avoiding address reuse to minimize public key exposure. Longer term, the community must prioritize developing and migrating to post-quantum signature schemes, treating this as necessary engineering work rather than a distant theoretical problem.

(Source：CoinDesk)