Google's Warning of 2029 Quantum Hacking Threat, Is XRP Really Safe?

▲ XRP, Quantum Computer/AI Generated Image ©

As the threat of hacking in the upcoming era of quantum computers emerges as the biggest challenge for the virtual asset ecosystem, an interesting analysis has brought relief to investors: only a tiny fraction, 0.03% of the total circulating supply of XRP (Ripple), is exposed to quantum attacks.

According to Finbold, a cryptocurrency media outlet, on April 10 (local time), Bet, a unique node list validator, diagnosed that only approximately 21 million tokens, representing 0.0342% of the current XRP circulating supply, are exposed to the potential risk of quantum attacks. He explained that this negligible amount has shown no activity for the past five years and originates from just two dormant accounts whose public keys have already been exposed externally.

Conversely, 300,000 XRP accounts holding approximately 2.4 billion tokens have never conducted a single transaction to date, meaning their public keys, which allow others to send funds to the account, have not been exposed at all, keeping them in a secure state. Google estimates that as early as 2029, powerful quantum computers could reverse-engineer exposed public keys to access accounts and identify private keys that grant control, thus increasing the importance of public key protection daily.

The XRP Ledger is equipped with several defense mechanisms to protect assets from these potential quantum attacks. For example, it supports a feature that allows account holders to replace their signing keys without changing their existing accounts, thereby preventing private key leakage. Furthermore, Mayuka Badari, a software engineer at RippleX, emphasized that tokens held in escrow accounts are safely protected from quantum threats through a time-lock function.

Long-term security solutions are also being smoothly developed. Dennis Angel, a software engineer at XRP Labs, announced late last year that Alphanet, a developer network for building and testing applications, had achieved complete defense against quantum attacks. Experts predict that there is no immediate quantum hacking threat to the XRP ecosystem and that the blockchain industry as a whole will flexibly build defense lines in line with future technological changes.

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