A lot of people still think quantum computing is something way off in the future, but honestly the pace of progress has been surprising. It’s moving faster than most of us expected.right now, bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies are built on elliptic curve cryptography . The problem is, once a public key shows up on-chain, a powerful enough quantum computer could, at least in theory, reverse it and figure out the private key.
Now,i am not saying this happens tomorrow,but if bitcoin does not upgrade its cryptography in the next 3–5 years, the risk gets very real. Quantum hardware is improving step by step, and once it crosses a certain threshold, the current security model won’t hold up.
We’re talking about the world’s fifth largest asset here. If it doesn’t adapt, the idea that its security could collapse almost overnight and bitcoin price will go to zero.
Bitcoin has been under threat for its entire existence. If at first these were threats from governments (which is gradually decreasing), then in the future new threats may arise, such as quantum computers or something similar, related to the development of technology.
And how do you imagine the "adaptation" of bitcoin will look like? Rewrite the entire source code and launch the project anew using modern technologies that can protect against quantum computers or something like that? From a technical point of view, bitcoin is already outdated, and over time it will become even more outdated. But nothing can be done about it, since people "believe" in this asset in the form in which it is. Bitcoin 2.0 (as a way to
refresh bitcoin from a technical point of view) will be like another fork - no one needs it and useless for the general public.
Theoretically, the price of bitcoin can fall to zero from any news. Something similar has happened more than once in the past, with the caveat that the price did not fall to zero, but still, the falls were very significant.