A pirate who has become a defender warns that most of the industry is asleep on the existential threat of crypto: quantum computer science.
David Carvalho, CEO of the post-quantum infrastructure company, Noris Protocol, began to hack at the age of 13, experimenting with spam emails to attract job offers and attract the attention of employers.
Finally, this curiosity moved to a formal work of cybersecurity, where it used the same skills to defend the systems instead of probe them. Today, it builds quantum resilient systems for decentralized networks and claims that the cryptographic foundations of blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are dangerously outdated.
“Cryptography behind almost all channels is as weak as the rest of the cryptography of the world,” Carvalho told Cointelegraph. “Quantum arrives for all this, as the meteors came for dinosaurs.”
Although Bitcoin and other Blockchain developers often say that there is still a lot of time to adapt, the window can close quickly. Efforts to implement quantum resistant signatures are underway, but Carvalho said they are far from widespread or treated with the urgency that the threat requires.
Quantum threats collect Bitcoin data today
For years, the idea that quantum computers could threaten Bitcoin resembled science fiction. But the developments of the real world suggest that the threat moves from theory to early practice.
Governments and technology giants are already preparing for what is called the “Harvest Now, Decrypt” model. The American federal agencies, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have warned since 2022 of the urgency to adopt algorithms resistant to quantities, while a memorandum of the White House has prompted NSA to advise government entrepreneurs to migrate towards post-quantan cryptography by 2035.
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Today’s quantum technology does not fall for the SHA-256 hash6 of Bitcoin or the digital signature algorithm of the Elliptical Courbe (ECDSA) which secures cryptographic keys. But researchers like Carvalho argue that exponential breakthroughs – especially when associated with AI – could happen suddenly. The actors and groups of cybercriminals sponsored by the State already collect encrypted blockchain data now, in the hope of deciphering them once the quantum material catches up.
“The opponents who are currently collecting encrypted blockchain data are not waiting to attack today,” said Carvalho. “They build data sets for tomorrow. When technology catches up, they will unlock a decade of secrets in a few minutes. ”
Despite these warnings, most of the Bitcoin community does not see quantum IT as an immediate threat, and there is no general meaning of panic.
Bitcoin’s current cryptography is always considered robust against existing quantum machines, and developers have started to explore defenses like BIP-360, which offers quantum resistant addresses. Projects such as Carvalho’s Noris protocol also work to help blockchains in transition to post-nuntum cryptographic standards.
Quantum laced with AI is the real apocalypse of Bitcoin
While most conversations on quantum threats focus on brute force attacks against cryptographic keys, Carvalho thinks that the real danger lies in the convergence of quantum computers and artificial intelligence. Together, he argues, they could allow furtive and asymmetrical attacks which do not overwhelm cryptographic systems with power but distland them with precision.
“Everyone is waiting for a countdown that will not come. You will not have a warning that a 10-year-old Bitcoin portfolio has been cracked. You will just see displaced funds, and no one can prove how or by whom,” he said.
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AI is already integrated into cybersecurity – used for intrusions detection, intelligent contract audit and anomalies detection. But in bad hands, the same tools could be returned. An AI striker could automatically scan open source portfolios for on -board bugs, simulate validator’s responses and adapt in real time to network behavior. If it is associated with a quantum computer capable of breaking the private elliptical curve keys, the result would not be a noisy breach, but what Carvalho calls a “silent collapse”.
“It’s not just about stealing parts,” he said. “It is a question of eroding confidence in an invisible way. Whole blockchains could be compromised, usurped governance systems, and no one knows who did it or how. ”
AI -focused tests have found vulnerabilities in cryptographic libraries that traditional tools neglect. Combine this with opponents storing encrypted data under the “Harvest Now, Decrypt Ultor Ultor” model, and the basics of a systemic violation can already be in place.
Carvalho warned that this could mark Bitcoin’s real apocalypse if he was left unanswered – not a dramatic direct cracking of SHA -256 but a slow and silent erosion of the trusted layers that keep the system together.
Bitcoin cannot defend itself against weak links
For all discourse on the decentralization of Bitcoin, its real infrastructure remains deeply centralized. Cloud platforms, operating pools and validators networks all have vulnerable emerging points that quantum compatible opponents could exploit. If a single cloud supplier hosting hundreds of complete nodes is compromised, damage could wave on the whole network, regardless of the decentralization of the protocol itself.
“Decentralization is great on paper, but if everyone rolls through the same dorsal spine or trust a handful of third -party api, the game is already lost.”
The quantum threat could exploit the dead angles in the systems surrounding it: centralized infrastructure, aging technology and confidence hypotheses.
Some projects are already being prepared. Naoris de Carvalho, for example, is based on national security frameworks to build decentralized systems designed for a post-toastum world. Others are developing quantum -resistant rollers, new key formats and protocol upgrades via Bitcoin improvement proposals (BIP) or by taking advantage of intrinsically secure technologies as Starkware’s Starks.
The threat is approaching, but the answer also increases. What remains is whether the cryptography ecosystem will act before it is too late.
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