Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: How long to hack an address that is used to send BTC multiple times?
by
haltingprobability
on 02/01/2018, 01:21:21 UTC
The current problem with ECDSA is that it is susceptible to attacks by quantum computer due to Shor's algorithm. This means that quantum computers can potentially crack ECDSA in a reasonable amount of time.

Shor's algorithm only provides quadratic speedup. That means that the approx. 256 bits of security of secp256k1 becomes approx 128 bits of security in a world of readily-available, at-scale quantum computing. I wouldn't call 2128 brute-forceable "in a reasonable amount of time."

I think you're mixing up Shor's with Grover's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography#Quantum_computing_attacks

Yes, thank you. Both provide quadratic speedup so I forget which is which. QC is not my field, I just see a lot of obvious misinfo and FUD on this forum and feel the urge to try to set the record straight as best I can.