Alan Baratz, CEO of quantum computing company D-Wave, said that as quantum hardware continues to develop, it will be able to surpass the computing devices currently used for Bitcoin mining and may pose a challenge to Bitcoin's existing proof-of-work mechanism.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, he stated that the timeline remains unclear, but the crypto industry should begin discussing quantum-native alternatives before the technology matures. Baratz believes that waiting until quantum computing becomes truly capable of real-world attacks will be far more costly.
D-Wave proposes a quantum proof-of-work scheme.
Baratz also stated that D-Wave has demonstrated a new quantum proof-of-work protocol, attempting to serve as an alternative to Bitcoin's existing mining mechanism. According to him, this scheme is based on a quantum optimization problem, which can be solved more efficiently by a quantum system.
He stated that this design aims to preserve the competitive mechanism of proof-of-work while making the mining process more resistant to attacks. Baratz also indicated that the solution could improve energy efficiency by approximately 1000 times and could potentially become a viable alternative to Bitcoin in the future.
It is still in the experimental stage at present.
However, this proposal is currently still experimental. Bitcoin's existing proof-of-work algorithm has been running for many years, and pushing for a change in the underlying mechanism is expected to encounter significant resistance within the community.
The prevailing view in the industry is that existing quantum hardware is still far from posing a direct threat to the Bitcoin network. In other words, related discussions focus more on medium- to long-term risks rather than short-term security incidents.
AI has also been included in discussions of cryptographic risks.
This discussion has recently extended to the field of AI. Previously, Anthropic's research mentioned that its Claude Mythos Preview model, Eve, discovered unknown attack methods in deliberately weakened versions of cryptographic algorithms.
This result has sparked a new discussion: will stronger AI systems accelerate cryptographic breakthroughs, thereby shortening the time it takes for the quantum threat to truly materialize? Bitcoin supporter Samson Mow, however, argues that there is no need to rush into post-quantum cryptography.
