Google is accelerating its timeline for quantum reckoning. Here’s when Bitcoin, Ethereum need to be ready

Google is changing speed and accelerating its posture to better handle the arrival of quantum computing.

On Wednesday, Google announced that it’s setting an “ambitious timeline” to migrate most of its authentication and digital signature models to post-quantum cryptography by 2029.

The company cited faster-than-expected progress in quantum hardware development, error correction, and factoring resource estimates.

A day earlier, the Ethereum Foundation published a four-pronged roadmap to protect the $260 billion network.

The organisation also set a 2029 target for completion, although researchers inside the Ethereum Foundation don’t think quantum computing will be “cryptographically relevant” for another eight to 12 years.

Even so, researchers are erring on the side of caution.

Chaincode Labs has estimated that up to 50% of all Bitcoin — roughly $700 billion — is vulnerable to a quantum computing threat.

At the upper echelons of finance, there are also concerns about the threat posed by quantum computing.

In January, Sergio Ermotti, CEO of $5 trillion Swiss bank UBS, sounded the alarm.

Moves from Google, the Ethereum Foundation, and members of the Bitcoin Core development group form a growing chorus of voices that reckon that quantum computing could break the security models that undergird the majority of crypto networks.

Two main threats

Google’s timeline shows two main quantum risks, both with distinct levels of urgency.

The first threat is already happening, according to Google.

It is called “store-now-decrypt-later attacks, where adversaries capture encrypted data today and wait for future quantum computers to decrypt it.

This makes encryption vulnerable right now, even though current quantum computers can’t break it yet.

The second threat directly targets cryptocurrencies. That’s because the attack targets digital signatures, the cryptographic proof that transactions are authentic.

For protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum, compromising digital signatures is existential.

They prove you own your coins and authorise any transactions, meaning if quantum computers can forge signatures, they can drain users’ wallets.

Developers prepare

Even though the Ethereum Foundation doesn’t expect quantum computing to pose a threat to users for another 8 to 12 years, researchers acknowledge that “the work must begin well before the threat arrives.”

Bitcoin developers aren’t waiting around either. A proposal, dubbed BIP360, already exists to address quantum risks before they materialise.

“Our whole motto is: prepared, not scared,” Hunter Beast, one of the proposal’s authors, previously told DL News.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.