The director of the Cybersecurity Directorate of the National Security Agency (NSA), Anne Neuberger, has declared that they are working on a new crypto.
This would be a “quantum-resistant” cryptocurrency, designed to withstand potential attacks carried out by quantum computers.Â
In fact, given the high processing power of quantum computers, there are those who argue that the current cryptocurrencies may not be able to withstand any attacks which use these technologies.Â
Quantum computers already exist, although for now they are scarce and used only by very few people, companies or institutions. However, it is believed that in the near future they may become widespread, making them accessible even to those who wish to use them for carrying out attacks against cryptocurrencies.Â
For this reason, the NSA would be working on a new cryptocurrency capable of resisting this type of attack. However, it should be said that, according to several experts, Bitcoin would already have the characteristics to resist quantum computer attacks.Â
Anyways, there are no further details regarding the NSA’s new cryptocurrency project, except for the confirmation by the director Neuberger about the fact that the agency is already working on it.Â
The Cybersecurity Directorate directed by Neuberger is a department of the NSA established very recently, in July 2019, which aims to prevent and eradicate threats to the national cybersecurity systems and to the defense industrial base of the country.Â
The agency has been involved for some time now, both directly and indirectly, in particular on Bitcoin, given that already in 2018 they started to monitor the BTC blockchain and collect information on its users.
According to some hypotheses, they could even have played a role in the creation of Bitcoin itself, either because Satoshi Nakamoto would have had direct relations with the agency, or because some of the technologies used by Satoshi were developed by the NSA itself. To date, however, these assumptions have never been confirmed.Â
