Bitcoin Will Soon Reach a Quarter Million USD, Say Venture Investors 0 15

Where are you, those serene times when the impartial Browning served as the arbiter of emotional conversations in Cape Town? Here, a well-known venture investor laments new threats, digital threats, I dare say this magical word — quantum. However, the primary concern should not be the crypto industry; a more convenient target for quantum attacks is not bitcoins.

Tim Draper, founder of the venture firm Draper Associates, believes that money stored in banks and financial institutions is much more vulnerable to quantum attacks than cryptocurrencies.

Crypto investors fear attacks from super-powerful quantum computers capable of breaking the cryptographic protection of Bitcoin's blockchain. However, it is much easier to compromise the outdated infrastructure of financial institutions than the network of the first cryptocurrency, claims the venture investor.

Even if something similar happens to Bitcoin, node operators can roll back to the last safe block. The dollar and banks do not have such an option.

From a technical standpoint, conducting an anti-quantum fork of Bitcoin is possible; however, this requires the consensus of the majority of nodes and miners, so such a measure should only be taken in exceptional cases. This, however, contradicts the very principle of immutability of Bitcoin's blockchain, but tough times demand tough decisions.

"Quantum technologies will hack banks long before they reach the blockchain. Everyone is panicking about quantum computers being able to break Bitcoin's encryption, while the banks themselves operate on old infrastructure, against which Bitcoin looks like Fort Knox," wrote Draper, referring to the fortified storage of the U.S. gold reserve.

Draper is also confident that in the next year and a half, Bitcoin will rise to $250,000 — its growth will be provoked by inflation and a decline in investor trust in the U.S. dollar.

Crypto blogger Lark Davis, with an audience of over 1.4 million readers on social media platform X, agreed with Draper, stating that if basic security rules are followed, crypto assets will remain safer than cash in a bank — unless crypto traders have their access keys stolen. Davis believes that with quantum computing, all outdated security systems can be hacked, so cryptocurrency should not be considered the only vulnerable target for hackers.

Against this backdrop, Draper reiterated his long-standing prediction: over time, Bitcoin could displace the dollar from everyday transactions. In his opinion, first, retailers will start accepting the first cryptocurrency alongside fiat money, and then they may switch exclusively to Bitcoin.