Presidio Bitcoin Releases Quantum Readiness Paper

Today Presidio Bitcoin, a Bitcoin hub located in the Bay Area in California, has launched a knowledge repository/living report on Github to track the current state of research related to Bitcoin’s quantum vulnerability.

The report aims to be a central location where people in the ecosystem can easily keep track of and analyze the current state of research around the issue.

It currently takes a comprehensive look through the state of:

• The current state of quantum computing, as well as research into different quantum computing technologies that could lead to material engineering progress towards a viable device.
• The level of exposure, i.e. how many coins and how much overall value is currently vulnerable to long-range attacks by a capable quantum computer.
• Post-quantum cryptographic schemes, as well as the current state of research in developing variants of such schemes more heavily optimized for Bitcoin’s unique architecture and way of functioning.
• Different ways of implementing post-quantum cryptography in Bitcoin, and the trade-offs between these different paths.
• Different mechanisms for safely migrating vulnerable coins to quantum-safe addresses in the event that a powerful enough quantum computer is created before users migrate to post-quantum cryptography.
• An analysis of different ways that the actual migration could play out under different circumstances.

They plan to regularly update the repository/report as new research comes out, and solutions and plans are further refined and updated.

The announcement comes after growing claims that Bitcoin developers are not doing anything to acknowledge or address the issue, and aims to highlight the on-going research and development into solutions to the issue conducted by developers.

Read the current version of the report here.