BlockBeats News, May 24th - Security researchers have warned that AI is accelerating the development of quantum computing and may preemptively threaten the modern encryption systems relied upon by networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated: "The future security landscape will be entirely different. The combination of quantum computing and AI will render the security approaches of the past unreliable." The report mentioned that AI has been used to optimize key technical bottlenecks such as quantum error correction, which could shorten the actual implementation time of quantum computers. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin also mentioned that AI is continuously accelerating scientific research progress, stating that "the next generation of quantum computers might even be built with the assistance of AI."

Researchers are also concerned about the "collect first, decrypt later" strategy that is emerging, where some governments or institutions are preemptively collecting encrypted data and waiting for future mature quantum computers to collectively decrypt it. Since blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum widely use Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), a sufficiently powerful quantum computer theoretically could derive private keys from public keys, thus endangering wallet security.

Currently, several blockchain ecosystems including Ethereum, Solana, Zcash, Ripple, and NEAR have begun researching or deploying "post-quantum cryptography" migration solutions. However, researchers have pointed out that current post-quantum encryption schemes still face issues such as large size and slow speed, indicating that the industry may need to enter a long-term phase of "continuously upgrading security systems" in the future.