Analyst: Bitcoin's quantum attack may have harmful spillover effects on traditional financial markets

This month, Google claimed a breakthrough with its new Willow quantum computing chip, raising concerns that the emerging technology could one day allow hackers to crack the encryption that secures Bitcoin. Such a hack could devastate the price of Bitcoin as thieves could steal bitcoins from supposedly secure digital wallets. A quantum device powerful enough to crack Bitcoin could be a decade or more away, researchers say. Still, the technology's advances carry long-term risks unless Bitcoin's developer community beefs up its technology in time-consuming upgrades. Analysts warn that a quantum attack on Bitcoin could have harmful spillover effects on traditional financial markets. "If someone gains the ability to develop a quantum computer hack and decides to use that capability to attack cryptocurrencies, what you now have is a time bomb waiting to go off," said Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. (WSJ)