Europol warns that crypto-wallets become "major risk" under quantum attacks

EU law enforcement agency releases two reports: Calls on all parties to prepare immediately for quantum computing threats

On Wednesday, EU law enforcement agency Europol released two reports urging organizations, policymakers and the cryptocurrency industry to now start preparing quantum computers capable of cracking widely used encryption algorithms.

Quantum Computing and Cryptocurrency Security

The first report, entitled "Quantum Computing and Cryptocurrency", was prepared by Europol's European Cybercrime Center. The report noted that cryptocurrency wallets are "the main exposure point for quantum threats." The wallet relies on a pair of keys: a private key used to authorize transactions, and a public key used by the network to verify transactions.

reports that a quantum computer powerful enough can derive private keys from public keys, allowing attackers to spend money without authorization. This moment is often referred to as "Q Day".

report points out that the hash function that connects blocks and supports mining is largely quantum resistant because the number of operations required to crack the 256-bit hash value remains "unbelievably high" under foreseeable technical conditions. "Cryptocurrencies will not collapse due to quantum computing," the report concluded, while recommending "proactive defense" measures to ensure their long-term security. The report recommends a phased transition to anti-quantum cryptography and strengthening wallet security and key management.

For wallets that have already disclosed the public key on the chain, they cannot be reinforced afterwards. The report said that for these situations,"the only solution is preventive migration," in which owners move funds into new wallets before any attack occurs. Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode estimated in May that 6.04 million bitcoins (30.2% of the total issued) had their public keys exposed.

Upgrading Bitcoin also comes with its own costs. Post-quantum signatures standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are 10 to 120 times larger than the ECDSA signatures currently used in Bitcoin, which the report says could pose a risk of overloading block space, leading to increased costs and slower confirmation speeds. The report cited a 2024 study that estimated that migrating all unused transaction output would require at least 76 days of cumulative downtime, which could take about 300 days if the workload took up 25% of each block.

The report cited IBM's technology roadmap, which aims to achieve fault-tolerant quantum computers by 2029, and a 2025 survey that showed that 32 experts expected that within the next ten years, the probability that a machine will crack RSA-2048 encryption within 24 hours is between 28% and 49%.

Microsoft also expects scalable quantum computing to be achieved by 2029, while Google's research in March and an AI-assisted competition in September both lowered estimates of the resources needed for elliptic curve cryptography used to attack Bitcoin.

In June, Coinbase's Quantum Advisory Board urged developers to start post-quantum migration work immediately, and the Ripple and Stellar Development Foundation also released migration roadmaps. In July, nine companies, including BlackRock, Coinbase and Strategy, committed to jointly invest $15 million over three years in Bitcoin security research, including quantum defense.

Risks of "Collect Now, Decrypt Later"

The second report, titled "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later", was developed in collaboration with Carlos III University in Madrid, Spain, to review attackers who collect encrypted data today for later decryption. The report found that widely used protocols such as TLS, SSH and OpenPGP are vulnerable, with specific risks varying depending on configuration and key management.

The report stated that "there is currently no clear evidence" that the technology is being used systematically on a large scale. The resources required make government communications and confidential business data the most likely targets.

In September, three European Union financial regulators pointed out the same strategy, warning that quantum computers capable of cracking encryption could arrive before the technology would have any viable commercial use. Member states of the EU NIS Cooperation Council will adopt a post-quantum migration strategy by the end of 2026.

关于支付领域，加密货币报告指出，实时拦截带来的量子风险比回溯性解密更为紧迫。报告描述了一种“即时”攻击，即量子计算机在交易公开其公钥与交易被确认之间的短暂窗口期内推导出私钥。

欧洲刑警组织建议成立一个由欧盟委员会领导的工作组，成员包括欧洲刑警组织、欧盟网络安全局（ENISA）和欧盟反洗钱管理局，以定期向政策制定者通报情况。根据第二份报告，美国国家标准与技术研究院提议到2030年弃用当今最常见的公钥配置，并在2035年前逐步淘汰经典公钥密码学。