Quantum Computers Still Can’t Crack Bitcoin’s SHA256 Algorithm

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Bitcoin’s SHA256 encryption algorithm is still secure despite Chinese researchers’ claims that RSA encryption is being hacked with existing quantum computers.

A group of 24 Chinese researchers said they could factor a 48-bit number using a 10-qubit quantum computer. This could be crucial in cracking the RSA encryption algorithm that underpins much of the communication on the internet.

China claims to optimize Shnorr’s algorithm with Quantum Machine

The researchers say they can use quantum computers to solve a previously unsolvable step in Schnorr’s method of factoring large prime numbers. Solving the prime factors of a large number is a crucial step in breaking the RSA encryption algorithm.

While the paper is theoretically sound, experts say it’s hard to prove that today’s quantum computers will deliver improvements.

In the absence of any analysis showing it will be faster, I suspect the most likely scenario is that it’s not a big improvement,” said MIT scientist Peter Shor.

The RSA algorithm ensures confidentiality between parties exchanging data via public and private keys. It is a two-way function. This means that given the encrypted information and a private key, it is possible to determine the plaintext.

The idea that quantum computing could break encryption schemes deemed “unbreakable” by conventional computers was proposed by Shor in 1994.

Tamper-proof hash function, for now

SHA256, on the other hand, is used to ensure that data has not been altered. It is a hash function rather than an encryption algorithm.

On the Bitcoin network, SHA256 helps prove that the data in a transaction block has not been tampered with. It is a one-way function, which means that the output cannot be used to determine the input.

While Shor’s work has proven that it is possible to solve for the prime factors of a huge number, forming the basis of RSA encryption, no known algorithm determines the input of a hash function, given its exit. SHA-256 is also said to be collision resistant, making it nearly impossible to find different inputs that produce the same output.

A Bitcoin miner must continually vary a number called a nonce to adapt the output of a SHA256 function to be less than a predefined number. The number, called the difficulty, is adjusted based on how long it took miners to create the correct output from previous 2016 blocks. If guessing the correct exit of the last blocks of 2016 took more than ten minutes, then the Bitcoin algorithm makes the difficulty target easier to guess, and vice versa. The miner uses special computers called ASICs to make as many guesses as possible in one second.

A January 2022 paper from the University of Sussex said that a quantum computer with 13 million qubits “breaks Bitcoin encryption” in a day, whereas the same task would take a 300 million qubit machine an hour. It is unclear whether the document refers to the private and public keys to exchange Bitcoin or the SHA256 hash function.

IBM boasts an impressive track record

The American multinational IBM claims to have the most powerful quantum computer in the world, with 433 qubits. It plans to launch a 1,000-qubit quantum computer in 2023 and a 4,000-qubit machine in 2025.

Japanese computing giant Fujitsu is expected to ship the country’s first home 64-qubit quantum computer in the spring of 2023. It recently signed a new deal to supply the machine to a Spanish computing center. Last year, it concluded an agreement with the RIKEN research institute to deliver a machine intended for medical research.

However, as with Chinese researchers, breakthroughs could appear much faster than expected.

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Disclaimer

BeInCrypto has reached out to a company or individual involved in the story for an official statement on recent developments, but has yet to receive a response.

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