Are they REALLY Quantum Resistant Cryptocurrencies? | QRL, IOTA, Mochimo, Cardano

So there's been a lot of chatter about quantum computing destroying bitcoin.

Quantum computers are really effective against Elliptic curve encryption, and RSA encryption. While RSA isn't used as much, Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm or ECDSA is the cryptographic algorithm used by Bitcoin to make sure that only the owner can spend their coin.

BTC: 3QhHP4484pfGvhRcKNiNc8VeAWSzUuvNrZ
ETH: 0xD40c70e90eDca6E2114F8EbCa4084f3e51Ba7b6C

But in short - for bitcoin, one of the biggest issues is the fact that this public key is exposed when a transaction is made. And when the public key is exposed, there's a possibility that a quantum computer could reverse the calculation and actually find the private key from the public key, given a large enough quantum computer.

0:00 Is cryptocurrency safe?
2:03 Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL)
5:43 Mochimo
9:37 IOTA
12:13 Cardano
12:55 Post-Quantum Standards
14:00 My Crypto Portfolio

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What is XMSS? It's the eXtended Merkle Signature Scheme (XMSS). They each consist of two components-a onetime signature (OTS) scheme and a method for creating a single, long-term public key from a large set of OTS public keys.

XMSS uses the Winternitz signature scheme, or W-OTS. WOTS generates 32 random numbers, which are 256 bits each. For each random number, we hash 256 times, using say, SHA-256. So this becomes our "private key".

QRL says they are "the first industrial implementation to utilize IETF specified XMSS; a hash-based, forward secure signature scheme with minimal security assumptions and reusable addresses that comes with NIST approval"

So, as we were expecting, Quantum Resistant Ledger was built in mind with quantum security, and using a good candidate. So remember this WOTS and XMSS schemes, because you'll see them coming up in some of the other cryptocurrencies.

It would take 2500 qubits to break elliptic curve discrete logarithms, and 4000 for RSA encryption. However, these are perfect, "logical" qubits. Because of error correction and other necessary processes, we need many more physical qubits to make one logical qubit. The quantum error correction overhead is very large. Some estimates say that 10 million physical qubits would be needed, even the lowest estimates say millions. And different quantum hardware systems need different amounts of quantum error correction. While some quantum computing hardware may scale up more easily or the qubits themselves are easier to create, they're likely needed to have a lot more overhead, and are harder to control, so their error corrected to logical qubit threshold is even larger.

Mochimo uses the EU's PQCryptos approved WOTS+, which is the Winternitz signature scheme, whichI just talked about, and like I mentioned, so far, hash-based algorithms do seem to be resistant to quantum computing attacks so far.

IOTA is not claiming quantum security or encryption on the home page, however, ages ago, there were claims that IOTA was the only cryptocurrency which is currently Quantum Resistant by using Winternitz OTS+ (One Time Signatures). That obviously isn't true as we talked about Mochimo and QRL already, and it's interesting that they are actually moving AWAY from post-quantum security as a core focus.

So this new Chrysalis release uses the Ed25519 signature scheme, which is Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA). It does give a lot of positives to the IOTA tech, because it's faster, and reduces the transaction size.

It is, however, not quantum safe. Ed25519 is very vulnerable to quantum computers. However, IOTA believes that they can adopt new signature schemes quickly and are waiting for the recommendations for that, and upgrade once that viable scheme is found.

There's other cryptocurrencies that are starting to get into the research side of the effects of the post quantum computing world. Cardano for example, did research a few years ago jointly with a thinktank to start exploring what it would mean for cryptocurrencies

So in late 2016, NIST ran a competition for Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization to find a suitable quantum-resistant public-key encryption algorithms.

They have chosen 26 candidate algorithms, published in first round status report, with very different approaches, but mostly lay in 3 families: lattice based, error correcting code based, and multivariate based cryptosystems.

Sources:
iohk.io/en/research/library/
www.newsbtc.com/news/blockchain/cardano-foundation…
iota-beginners-guide.com/future-of-iota/iota-1-5-c…
www.zdnet.com/article/iota-still-wants-to-build-a-…
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