Quantum Pliers Cutting the Blockchain

Recent years have seen the continuous evolution of technology, which has led to the definition of frameworks such as the internet of things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. These paradigms are producing enormous quantities of data every single day. These data are subject to data analysis, shared publicly or kept secret. Traditionally, this task was carried out using databases. With the advent of Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLTs), instead, these data have a new way of being stored and shared (or kept private). The last actor role in this play is acted by quantum computers, since sufficiently large quantum computers are expected to seriously threaten the security and integrity of DLTs thanks to their totally different way of representing information. This paper aims to investigate the real threats for blockchain due to quantum computing and review post-quantum DLT solutions for traceability applications.