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Talk of quantum computers no longer sounds like science fiction at crypto events. At a recent developer gathering, the ETH Denver, engineers and security researchers turned their attention to a simple but unsettling question: what happens to Bitcoin if a powerful quantum machine comes online?

Reports have disclosed that new proposals are being folded into the network’s improvement process, laying early groundwork for defenses before any real crisis appears.

Quantum Computing: Why Hashing Is Not The Main Fear

Hashing—what miners and many parts of the system use—gets faster only a bit with quantum tricks. According to Lov Grover’s work, a quantum search method gives a square-root speedup, which changes safety margins but does not wipe them out.

In plain language: to break hashes at scale would need enormous, maybe unrealistic, machines under current models.

Signatures Face The Real Risk

Reports say the bigger worry is signatures. “What we’re worried about in the next five years are signatures, and that goes over with Shor’s,” Hunter Beast, co-author of BIP 360, said during the ETH Denver gathering.

The math behind most wallets today relies on elliptic curves, and Peter Shor showed a way a quantum machine could reverse that math.

That’s how a public key could reveal a private key once the right hardware exists. A blockchain security firm has been tracking addresses that have already exposed their public keys, and the numbers are not tiny.

Blockchain cybersecurity firm Project Eleven’s list flags millions of coins that, if an attacker had a big enough quantum device, would be at risk.

How Close Are We?

Estimates have been moving. Older papers put the needed resources in the many millions of qubits. More recent research from groups like Iceberg Quantum suggests the figure could be much lower, perhaps into the six-figure range.

Still, raw qubit counts tell only part of the story. What matters is how many “logical” qubits you can run with acceptable error rates, how long calculations take, and whether the machine can stay stable for that time.

Lab steps by big firms also matter; for example, Google has reported progress in error correction that many found encouraging. That doesn’t mean the break-in is imminent, but it does change risk models.

Where The Industry Stands

Reports note teams are forming to study and build defenses. The Ethereum Foundation has a post-quantum group, and major exchanges and firms are taking part in discussions.

Coinbase set up advisers, and its CEO, Brian Armstrong, has said the problem can be handled with planning. It is “solvable”, he said.

Featured image from Devfolio, chart from TradingView

The price of XRP has been relatively calm throughout February, especially following an early-month descent to just above $1.1. Hovering around $1.4, the second-largest altcoin has struggled to continue its recovery to around the $2 mark.

However, it appears the altcoin’s struggles might not last for long, especially if history repeats itself over the next few months. According to the latest on-chain data, XRP has surpassed a threshold that has coincided with a period of extended rally in the past.

XRP Price Surged 114% After Last Realized Loss Spike

In a February 21st post on the social media platform X, Santiment shared that XRP investors are realizing their losses at a rate not seen in nearly four years. The blockchain firm revealed that the volume of realized losses climbed to approximately 908 million in the past week.

As Santiment explained in its post, these significant realized losses occur when a large number of investors sell their coins at a price lower than what they originally paid. Typically, this period coincides with the peak of market fear, where investors panic-sell their holdings for a loss instead of holding on and hoping for a rebound.

However, a spike in realized losses can be a relevant positive signal, as it has been for the price of XRP in the past. This trend implies that a significant percentage of the weak hands have left the market, with much of the damage already done.

From a historical perspective, a surge in realized losses has often preceded market bottoms. When the previous weekly milestone of 1.93 billion in realized losses occurred in 2022, the altcoin’s value witnessed an over 114% surge in the following eight months.

Santiment wrote in the X post: 

This is because extreme fear tends to peak before price does. Once sellers are exhausted, even a small amount of new buying pressure can push prices higher. That does not guarantee an immediate rally, but it increases the probability of a bounce.

Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that Ripple’s partial victory in its case against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission played a role in XRP’s 2023 surge. As shown in the chart below, the altcoin’s price appears to be seeing some bullish momentum since the notable realized loss spike. 

XRP Price At A Glance

As of this writing, the price of XRP stands at around $1.44, reflecting a 1% jump in the past 24 hours. An over 100% upswing from the current price point would see the altcoin return to around $3.