How Would a Preimage Attack Impact the Security of a Cryptocurrency Wallet Address Generation?

Wallet addresses are often derived from the public key using a series of cryptographic hashes (e.g. SHA-256 and RIPEMD-160).

If a preimage attack were successful against these functions, an attacker could potentially reverse a known public wallet address to find the corresponding public key. While the private key is still needed to spend funds, knowing the public key is the first step toward potential attacks, especially in systems where public key reuse is common.