Mining and quantum computing

[Biodom]

News: 99.9% precision in quantum gating achieved.
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-record-breaking-logic-gate-important-milestone.html

Quantum computers realistically can be build with a further 10 fold improvement to 99.99%.
Will SHA-256 fall eventually? 5 or 10 years?
How to make bitcoin resistant, or should we?

[QuintLeo]

Quantum computing does NOT do well on linear computations, such as ANY cryptocoin algorythm uses.

 The strength of quantum computing is in calculations with MANY VARIABLES in use at the SAME time.

 This has been discussed before.

[Biodom]

Quantum computing does NOT do well on linear computations, such as ANY cryptocoin algorythm uses.

 The strength of quantum computing is in calculations with MANY VARIABLES in use at the SAME time.

 This has been discussed before.

EDIT: I did a bit more research and found this:
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/6062/what-effects-would-a-scalable-quantum-computer-have-on-bitcoin

Worst case scenario:

    1. Bitcoin ECDSA algorithm would be broken. Because quantum computers can easily decrypt the private key using the public key, anyone with a quantum computer can extract Bitcoins using the corresponding public key.

    2. Bitcoin hashing would become exponentially difficult. There's already a predicted escalation in mining difficulty due to the advent of ASIC, and quantum computers would create a spike in mining difficulty to which ASIC mining effects pale in comparison. In the short run, this would lead to hyperinflation, but the long run effects aren't known at this point.

    3. The hashing advantage of quantum computer will be curtailed by block mining limitations.
Unless quantum computers either:

(a) become publicly available (b) are given their own class for hashing purposes, so as to limit their mining advantage

Then miners with access to quantum computers have an unfair mining advantage, which can (and will be) used to manipulate the value and distribution of bitcoins. Furthermore,

    4. Quantum computer's hashing power can be used as voting power. If a coalition of people with scalable quantum computers could generate enough hashes to comprise over 51% of the total Bitcoin hashes,they could use that power to greatly manipulate the bitcoin network.

[tbonetony]

Bitcoin can hard-fork to adopt new algorithms to prevent quantum breach. I think there are already scientists working on those areas, otherwise entire society has much larger issues to face than bitcoin.

[leowonderful]

Quantum computing isn't going to be cheap, and it probably won't be available to the public, or will be extremely expensive, just like the first PCs. All of this is assuming Bitcoin isn't dead, which is definitely a possibility, although it probably won't matter, and in the event that Bitcoin dies, another cryptocurrency will probably pop up and replace it. It'll still take quite some time, so it'll be at least a few years before ASICS go r.i.p. Besides that, nice read. I'm still looking through it.

[QuintLeo]

I would ignore that so-called "worst case scenario" as it is completely IGNORING how quantum computers actually work to date.

[Biodom]

Not a specialist, so, maybe.

Found another mildly interesting tidbit:
Quantum bitcoin proposal.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.01383v1.pdf

The Quantum Bitcoin protocol has several advantages over classical Bitcoin, including immediate local verification of transactions.  This is a major improvement since we no longer need the computationally intensive and time-consuming method Bitcoin uses to record all transactions in the blockchain. Instead, Quantum Bitcoin only records newly minted currency which drastically reduces the footprint and increases efficiency.  We present formal security proofs for counterfeiting resistance and show that a quantum bitcoin can be re-used a large number of times before wearing out – just like ordinary coins and banknotes. Quantum Bitcoin is the first distributed quantum money system and we show that the lack of a paper trail implies full anonymity for the users

not sure what bitcoin specialists think about this one. Never heard about this before.

[NorrisK]

I wouldn't worry too much about the effects of quantum computing on bitcoin.

There are parties way more in danger than bitcoin, and bitcoin can just leech the solutions they come up with.

Nowadays, everything you do involves cryptography. Banks are a much bigger target in the first waves of attempts with this type of computing power. There is simply more to gain.

Another big target is infromation. Information from country security agencies, big pharmaceutical companies and stock exchanges is way more valuable than bitcoin will ever be.

[notlist3d]

Not a specialist, so, maybe.

Found another mildly interesting tidbit:
Quantum bitcoin proposal.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.01383v1.pdf

The Quantum Bitcoin protocol has several advantages over classical Bitcoin, including immediate local verification of transactions.  This is a major improvement since we no longer need the computationally intensive and time-consuming method Bitcoin uses to record all transactions in the blockchain. Instead, Quantum Bitcoin only records newly minted currency which drastically reduces the footprint and increases efficiency.  We present formal security proofs for counterfeiting resistance and show that a quantum bitcoin can be re-used a large number of times before wearing out – just like ordinary coins and banknotes. Quantum Bitcoin is the first distributed quantum money system and we show that the lack of a paper trail implies full anonymity for the users

not sure what bitcoin specialists think about this one. Never heard about this before.

Getting everyone on board for a change like this would be very hard, it seems for most part Bitcoin companies do not like change.  Getting everyone to even look at size changes is hard to get anything accomplished.   Only thing that they did in my eyes do quick is stop 51 percent on one pool back on G-hash long ago.  They got together and split hash as they had the over 50 for a bit.

So I don't see bitcoin going to quantum computing I think sha miners like we have now will remain what is used.  Now they will get more efficient over time and more powerful but essentially I think we are stuck with asics in BTC mining for the foreseeable future.

[PremiumCodeX]

Bitcoin can hard-fork to adopt new algorithms to prevent quantum breach. I think there are already scientists working on those areas, otherwise entire society has much larger issues to face than bitcoin.

Do you mean algorithms that will not work well enough on quantum computers?

I can confirm there are scientists working on those areas in order to prevent unwanted quantum breaches. I confirm it based on what I learned in the local ISACA conference last time. I learned information security experts plan with the possibility when quantum computing becomes a threat in information security already. May I look up the name of the researcher who talked in the conference? Maybe he has some publications we have not seen yet on the topic, too.

[tbonetony]

Bitcoin can hard-fork to adopt new algorithms to prevent quantum breach. I think there are already scientists working on those areas, otherwise entire society has much larger issues to face than bitcoin.

Do you mean algorithms that will not work well enough on quantum computers?

I can confirm there are scientists working on those areas in order to prevent unwanted quantum breaches. I confirm it based on what I learned in the local ISACA conference last time. I learned information security experts plan with the possibility when quantum computing becomes a threat in information security already. May I look up the name of the researcher who talked in the conference? Maybe he has some publications we have not seen yet on the topic, too.

Absolutely, I agree. I learnt some information from ISACA a while back but I did not fully understand those technical paper well enough to paraphrase here.