Cryptocurrency companies are preparing for the threat that powerful quantum computers could soon be able to hack the security at the heart of the global industry, including breaking the critical code that underpins bitcoin.
The risk to crypto posed by fast-developing quantum technology — which exploits the way the physics of matter works differently at atomic and subatomic levels — was once considered a distant possibility, with bitcoin widely seen as unhackable.
But digital assets firms are speeding up their preparations for a “post-quantum” age, as tech companies slash the timelines for developing practical quantum computers to as soon as 2030.