Counter-terrorism expert makes scary prediction about Bitcoin

When Andersen Cheng, CEO of London-based cryptography company Post-Quantum, said that quantum computing technology could break crypto within three years, he wasn’t joking.

Cheng’s exigence comes from his knowledge of the intelligence community. His company, Post-Quantum, has worked on top-secret counter-terrorism departments of organizations including Nato, GCHQ, and NCSC, and he’s the former head of TRL, which was the leading counter-terrorism technology supplier to the UK government. 

Using quantum computers, hackers could, Cheng told Decrypt, hijack a victim’s private keys and use them to fraudulently validate transactions. Since blockchains have no middle-man to determine which transactions were made fraudulently, the whole thing falls apart.

“The entire digital currency world is based on trust and the security of private key signing. If that trust is gone, then the value of your Bitcoin will to zero, immediately,” Cheng said.

Cheng’s deadline for crypto is…