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However: in future so-called quantum computer might be able to force encryption codes. A year ago, the Global Risk Institute, based in Toronto, calculated a risk of 1 to7 that the encryption procedures and tools would be decoded by the year 2026. The risk increased to a ratio of 50:50 by 2031, according to the study «Quantum Computing: A New Threat to Cybersecurity».

«If you manage to solve it, you will receive a million dollars»

The infamous P-NP-problem is an additional threat to cryptology and bitcoin et al. The P-NP-problem is one of the most important unsolved problems in theoretic information technology and cryptology. It is so complex that the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts added it to the list of millennium problems.

If you manage to solve it, you will receive a million dollars. The Bonn-based Professor Norbert Blum recently caused a major scientific stir in putting proof for P ≠ NP online. A few days later he had to admit that his proof was erroneous.

What is it about? P stands for problems that are highly complex. With sufficient computing power, algorithms could however be found to solve the problems within an «acceptable» time frame. Not so with NP-problems, which are far more complex.

One example is the traveling-salesman-problem. The core of the issue is whether P is equal to NP or not? If yes, certain as yet unknown algorithms may yet be able to solve the NP-problems within an «acceptable» period of time. Which would spell an immediate end to all cryptocurrencies, because hackers would be able to use such algorithms to forge or copy bitcoin et al.

«Nobody so far has been able to do so»

The majority of mathematicians and IT experts thinks it is pretty unlikely that P is equal to NP. And yet P not equal to NP is still unsolved. And proof is difficult no less: you don’t only have to show that there’s no algorithm to solve NP problems within an acceptable time frame. But also, that there can’t be such an algorithm.

And nobody so far has been able to do so. The question whether cryptocurrencies have a weak spot much like Greek god Achilles remains – and hence also the great uncertainty.

Frédéric Papp is an editor at finews.ch. He previously worked for cash.ch. He studied philosophy, economics and political science at University of Zurich. Before starting his studies, Papp made an apprenticeship as a banker at Swiss private bank Rahn & Bodmer.

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