Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya urged the cryptocurrency community on Tuesday to prepare for potential quantum threats to Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) after Google’s latest study signaled it may be closer to reality than previously thought.

Google Study Raised Important Questions, Says Palihapitiya

In an X post, Palihapitiya said that Google’s paper was “quite reasonable” and raised “important technical questions.”

He added that if artificial general intelligence or superintelligent AI is coming soon, the smartest first target for it would be cracking something like Bitcoin.

“The crypto elders should start spending more effort organizing on a timescale that makes crypto quantum resistant / proof in these next few years with a conclusive roadmap,” he added.

Should Crypto Community Be Worried?

Palihapitiya’s warning follows Google’s latest research, which suggested quantum computers could crack Bitcoin’s cryptography far sooner than expected.

According to the study, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically crack a Bitcoin private key in roughly 9 minutes, opening the door to “on-spend” exploits that could let attackers interfere with pending transactions.

Assumptions Should Not Be Overlooked, Says Security Expert

Jameson Lopp, co-founder and chief security officer at self-custody platform firm Casa, stated that assumptions underlying these claims should not be overlooked.

“The authors have improved upon techniques shown to work at a small scale, but we have no proof they can be scaled up,” he added.

Lopp had earlier estimated a "greater than 50% chance" that it will take at least another decade before a quantum computer, powerful enough to decode a Bitcoin public key to find its corresponding private key, becomes a reality.

Former Binance (CRYPTO: BNB) CEO Changpeng Zhao, meanwhile, said that quantum computing does not pose an existential threat to cryptocurrency, adding that it can always evolve to post-quantum security.

Price Action: At the time of writing, BTC was exchanging hands at $68,453.02, up 1.16% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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