Are quantum computers stealing Bitcoin? Inside Josh Mandell’s claim and the pushback

Is quantum Bitcoin hacking here?

Bitcoin was built connected the rule that erstwhile funds are secured by a backstage key, lone the holder tin entree them. But what if that presumption nary longer holds?

In what was reportedly a now-deleted station connected X, erstwhile Wall Street trader Josh Mandell alleged that quantum computers are being utilized to siphon Bitcoin (BTC) from long-dormant wallets — particularly those of owners presumed inactive oregon deceased.

According to him, a “large player” has recovered a mode to extract BTC straight from these wallets without going done the unfastened market, leaving blockchain analysts arsenic the lone means of detection.

If true, the implications would beryllium profound: Such enactment would undermine the precise instauration of Bitcoin’s information and ownership model. But what does the onchain grounds really show? And tin it beryllium demonstrated that the exertion needed to execute this adjacent exists today?

This nonfiction unpacks Mandell’s claims, adept reactions, the existent authorities of quantum computing and more.

Did you know? Over 2.3 million-3.7 cardinal BTC are estimated to beryllium mislaid everlastingly owed to forgotten backstage keys oregon inactive wallets.

What Josh Mandell claimed

Mandell alleges that old, inactive Bitcoin wallets are being softly drained utilizing quantum computing. He contends that a large histrion is accumulating BTC not via exchanges, but by accessing the backstage keys of wallets whose owners are improbable to beryllium alert oregon respond.

Key points of his claim:

• Targeted wallets: Long-dormant accounts, often assumed abandoned oregon tied to deceased owners.
• Off-market accumulation: Coins are extracted without creating terms disruptions oregon ample merchantability orders.
• Detection risk: Only blockchain forensics could uncover suspicious question patterns, yet Mandell admits nary wide impervious exists.
• Quantum leap: He implies that quantum exertion has reached a constituent wherever it tin ace Bitcoin’s cryptographic defenses successful ways classical computing cannot.

Crucially, Mandell offers nary hard evidence. His presumption is that the script is technically imaginable — and whitethorn already beryllium unfolding — but this remains unverified.

Did you know? Scientists astatine Oxford person achieved an mistake complaint of conscionable 0.000015% (one mistake successful 6.7 cardinal operations) for definite quantum operations — a caller world-record fidelity.

Technical feasibility: Can quantum tech bash this now?

Mandell’s assertion hinges connected quantum computers being precocious capable to interruption the public-key cryptography that secures Bitcoin wallets. Assessing this requires examining what specified an onslaught involves and however adjacent existent exertion is to making it possible.

Bitcoin relies connected the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), specifically the secp256k1 curve.

When coins are spent, a wallet’s nationalist cardinal becomes disposable onchain. If an attacker could deduce the backstage cardinal from that nationalist key, they could prehend immoderate remaining funds.

Shor’s algorithm, a quantum algorithm, could, successful theory, execute this exponentially faster than classical methods — but lone with quantum hardware acold beyond today’s capabilities.

In practice, however, respective method hurdles remain:

• Logical qubits and mistake correction: Physical qubits are unstable. To physique fault-tolerant logical qubits, mistake correction multiplies the hardware requirements.
• Scale of qubits needed: Estimates suggest hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of carnal qubits would beryllium required to interruption a azygous secp256k1 cardinal erstwhile error-correction overhead is included.
• Gate fidelity and mistake rates: Operations indispensable beryllium astir flawless. Current chips, similar Google’s 105-qubit Willow, are conscionable reaching thresholds wherever mistake correction begins to help, but they stay acold from afloat fault-tolerance.
• Expert projections: Most researchers enactment a realistic ECDSA-breaking quantum machine astatine slightest a decennary distant and longer without breakthroughs successful coherence times, scaling and mistake suppression.

Mandell implies this signifier has already been reached — that idiosyncratic has hardware almighty and discreet capable to ace backstage keys from dormant wallets without detection.

But, based connected nationalist knowledge, today’s devices are obscurity adjacent the required standard oregon stability.

Did you know? One Bitcoin wallet tied to the Mt. Gox hack inactive sits dormant and holds 79,957 BTC, making up astir 0.4% of Bitcoin’s full supply.

Pushback from the Bitcoin and crypto communities

The effect from the Bitcoin assemblage has been swift and skeptical.

Harry Beckwith, laminitis of Hot Pixel Group, stated, “There is virtually nary accidental this is presently happening.” Matthew Pines of the Bitcoin Policy Institute called the mentation “false” and criticized its deficiency of evidence.

Their arguments travel respective lines:

• Quantum capableness isn’t determination yet: While advancement is steady, current machines deficiency the qubit counts, mistake correction and processing powerfulness needed for cryptographic attacks connected Bitcoin. Quantum hazard is existent but remains a aboriginal concern.
• No supporting evidence: Onchain movements of dormant coins person been observed, but nary intelligibly bespeak quantum-driven theft. Most are amended explained by owners reactivating wallets, inheritance transfers oregon information upgrades.
• Limits of exposed nationalist keys: An onslaught would lone beryllium imaginable wherever public keys are revealed, and adjacent then, an adversary would request to cipher backstage keys successful existent time. Many long-inactive wallets ne'er exposed their nationalist keys astatine all.
• Blockchain transparency: Dormant wallets are intimately tracked by analytics firms. Large-scale stealth drains would astir surely trigger reddish flags, which haven’t been seen.

The prevailing presumption is that portion quantum computing volition yet airs a threat, Mandell’s proposition that it is already being weaponized against Bitcoin is premature.

What onchain information shows (or doesn’t show)

If quantum-based thefts were happening, the blockchain should amusement chiseled signs. So far, it doesn’t.

• Dormant wallets reactivated: Several aged wallets from the Satoshi epoch (2009-2011) person moved ample sums. For instance, 80,000 BTC crossed 8 addresses that had been inactive for 14 years was moved. But analysts judge these were voluntary migrations to modern code formats similar SegWit, not unexplained drains.
• No anomalous signatures: There is nary published grounds of transaction patterns that suggest quantum cardinal breaks, specified arsenic simultaneous extractions timed to nationalist cardinal exposure. Observed enactment aligns with regular actions similar consolidations oregon interest optimization.
• No confirmed thefts: Aside from reactivations, nary cases of nonaccomplishment tied straight to quantum computing person been verified. Old addresses thin to determination coins quietly, without grounds of forced transfers.
• Legacy vulnerabilities remain: A meaningful magnitude of BTC inactive sits successful older formats specified arsenic pay to nationalist cardinal (P2PK) and P2PK hash (P2PKH), which exposure nationalist keys and are theoretically weaker. This highlights a imaginable hazard if quantum capabilities advance, but determination is nary grounds of exploitation yet.

In short, onchain information confirms vulnerabilities beryllium but offers nary impervious they’re being exploited with quantum methods.

Mandell’s assertion successful position

Mandell’s informing that quantum computers are already stealing Bitcoin from dormant wallets remains unproven.

The ECDSA cryptography securing Bitcoin is inactive considered safe, with astir experts estimating astatine slightest a decennary earlier quantum hardware could realistically interruption it.

Some forecasts suggest risks could look successful the precocious 2020s, peculiarly for wallets with exposed nationalist keys. For now, blockchain grounds points to benign explanations specified arsenic reactivation, migration and consolidation.

The signs to ticker are clear: abrupt ample transfers from bequest formats, accelerated moves instantly aft nationalist cardinal vulnerability oregon verifiable demonstrations of backstage cardinal extraction. Until those appear, the quantum menace should beryllium viewed arsenic a aboriginal situation to hole for, not a contiguous reality.