Abstract
Today, technology has truly become part of our lives. We use the Internet, we all share in the cloud, and we create and store data. It is hard to imagine what the world would be like without technology. The more we rely on technology, the more imperative it is to protect ourselves from cyber-attacks.
To many, cybercrime is a distant event which appears on headline news affecting only the well-known names. However, over the past few years, things have changed dramatically. Recent statistics remind us that cybercrimes are closer than we think: with over 60% of small to medium sized businesses being targeted by cybersecurity attacks and over 80% of customers’ data that could be compromised in an attack1 . This is in addition to cyberattacks on individuals which have largely gone unreported. These statistics and experience reflect the challenge we face as we live through a period of unparalleled digital change embracing digital assets, mobile, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and cloud computing which together result in multi-faceted cyber-attack opportunities. These risks are going to increase as quantum computing becomes more accessible. With a quantum computer’s extraordinary computation power, what would take a conventional computer over 150 years to decode, may only take seconds, rendering most encryption obsolete and yet quantum computing is no longer fictitious.
The first line of attack by quantum hackers is likely to be related to financial assets as there are financial gains to be reaped. We believe the lowest hanging fruit for quantum hackers in the financial world will be cryptocurrencies. This is because the distributed nature of its technology that makes it safe in the classical world of computing will be the same factor that makes it vulnerable to quantum attacks. The digital signature of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)2 used by virtually all cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, HyperLiquid, Avalanche, etc.) are quantum-vulnerable. Security in cryptocurrencies, since its inception, has been relying on 1) a digital signature to guarantee the trustworthiness of the transactions; 2) the private key used to sign a transaction cannot be reverse-engineered back from its public key within the normal life span of a human being. This bedrock of trust will be broken when the underlying cryptographic technology is vulnerable to the hackers equipped with a powerful enough quantum computer.
This White Paper proposes a ground breaking solution to provide crucial quantum security to cryptocurrencies through the use of quantum-safe validation and quantum-safe wallets. Quantum safety solutions can be added to conventional blockchain transactions by executing zero-knowledge proofs to ensure both quantum-safe processing of addresses and signatures as well as the legitimacy of the transactions for incorporation on the chain.
1 Data obtained from “Small Business Cybersecurity Statistics You Should Know” by strongdm Feb 1, 2024 https://www.strongdm.com/blog/small-business-cyber-security-statistics 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography
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