BlockBeats report, May 24: Security researchers have warned that AI is accelerating quantum computing advancements and may prematurely threaten the modern cryptographic systems underlying Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchain networks. Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, stated: “The future security landscape will be entirely different. The combination of quantum computing and AI will render previously trusted security methods unreliable.” The report notes that AI has already been used to optimize critical bottlenecks such as quantum error correction, potentially shortening the timeline for practical quantum computers. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin also said AI is continuously accelerating scientific progress, stating, “The next generation of quantum computers may even be built with AI assistance.”
Researchers are also concerned that a "harvest now, decrypt later" strategy has begun to emerge, in which certain governments or institutions are proactively collecting encrypted data, waiting to decrypt it en masse once quantum computers become sufficiently advanced. Since blockchain networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum widely use elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically derive private keys from public keys, thereby threatening wallet security.
Currently, multiple blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, Zcash, Ripple, and NEAR, are researching or deploying post-quantum cryptography migration solutions. However, researchers note that current post-quantum encryption schemes still face issues such as large size and slow performance, suggesting that the industry may soon enter a long-term phase of continuous security system upgrades.