Hackers from North Korea are called the biggest threat to cryptocurrencies

The CEO of Fireblocks made an unexpected statement at the Financial Times Digital Asset Summit: the threat from quantum computers, which are theoretically capable of hacking the Bitcoin blockchain, is greatly exaggerated. In his opinion, it is enough for the crypto community to agree on a plan for the transition to post-quantum encryption and implement it before quantum technologies reach the appropriate level.

Shaulov believes that North Korean hackers, in particular, the Lazarus Group, are a much more urgent threat. As an example, he cited the recent hack of the KelpDAO bridge, which caused more than $ 292 million in losses. According to the top manager, such incidents scare big businesses away from working with cryptocurrencies.

The Fireblocks CEO emphasized that corporations are much more afraid of hackers than of the volatility of the crypto market. When billions of dollars worth of assets disappear from platforms, it creates a real panic among potential institutional investors and slows down the mass adoption of digital assets.

Shaulov also mentioned the lack of privacy for corporate clients as a separate problem. Any payment in cryptocurrency is recorded on a public blockchain, which means that outside observers can see all the company’s financial flows. This makes many organizations refuse to accept cryptocurrency payments.

Meanwhile, Project Eleven, a company specializing in quantum security, has predicted the onset of the so-called «Q Day» — the moment when a quantum computer will be able to crack the cryptographic protection of Bitcoin. Under the most aggressive scenario, this could happen as early as 2030. In April, an independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli cracked the 15-bit elliptic curve key using a publicly available quantum computer using a variant of the Shor algorithm. Cracking 256-bit cryptography is still a long way off, but progress in this direction is obvious.