New Money vs. Old: How Quantum Computing Could Rewrite Bitcoin’s Rules

With the advent of quantum computing, a hypothetical situation could arise: what if one miner—or a mining pool—suddenly controls over 50% of the network’s hashing power? Would the world even notice?

Naturally, if all newly minted bitcoins began flowing into a single wallet, it would raise immediate suspicion. But a sophisticated attacker could easily obscure this by distributing coins across multiple wallets. If they’re clever enough to corner the market, they’re likely clever enough to conceal their activity.

With a substantial advantage in computing power, this dominant miner could begin altering the algorithm used to build blocks. Rather than selecting pending transactions randomly or based on the highest gas (transaction) fees, they might prioritize transactions involving newly minted coins.

This behavior would effectively devalue older coins. Coins that haven’t moved in years could become harder to spend—not because they’re invalid, but because if miners don’t include those transactions in blocks, the coins effectively remain frozen. Some older coins would still make it through, especially when selected by independent miners or when accompanied by large enough fees. But overall, the value of “new” money would rise compared to “old” money.

If this scenario unfolded, the use of an alternative block selection algorithm would eventually become noticeable. But what could be done about it?

A fork might naturally occur, separating “new money” from “old,” but a traditional fork wouldn’t help much—since the dominant miner could continue operating on both chains. They wouldn’t be breaking any existing rules, and there’d be no effective way to stop them unless the rest of the network’s miners caught up in hashing power.

For now, the 51% attack remains a theoretical risk—one to be watched, but not feared. No one has yet developed the quantum hardware or algorithm necessary to carry out such an attack. And if anyone does, it’s likely to be a nation-state actor with ambitions far beyond cryptocurrency.

We see a world where everyone has access to digital currency, with a secure infrastructure and fast transactions. It shouldn’t take a finance degree to understand the money in your wallet, and paper money should behave just like digital money. We have created Your Coin to give banks a mechanism to rewrite the financial world in a manner where they can still provide valuable guidance and reap the relevant rewards by helping everyone use money that is even greener than the US Dollar.