Google Claims Quantum Supremacy

[Linkkoin]

Well, our reps had a chance to talk with people from IBM's quantum computing department  - they claimed that this technology is just starting, and he does not see quantum computers being able to threat current encryption of BTC in next several years.
When asked what about more or less 15 years time perspective - they smiled suspiciously.

Therefore, we still have several years of relative safety which can be spent on some sort of quantum encryption.

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[gentlemand]

I do not want to see Bitcoin again for 2000-3000 dollars.

If it ever does become quantum vulnerable it'll be worth a big fat zero, not a few grand still. You won't be able to trust any transaction and your balance could be lifted at any moment. Your bank account will also be open to all along with almost every current security system.

An unencrypted world would quickly become a bit stone age.

[qubitasic]

I do not want to see Bitcoin again for 2000-3000 dollars.

If it ever does become quantum vulnerable it'll be worth a big fat zero, not a few grand still. You won't be able to trust any transaction and your balance could be lifted at any moment. Your bank account will also be open to all along with almost every current security system.

An unencrypted world would quickly become a bit stone age.

Banks can freeze accounts, rewind, correct it.
But Bitcoin can't.

Therefore a quantum computer earlier than 'quantum resistant Bitcoin network' should never happen.

[gentlemand]

Banks can freeze accounts, rewind, correct it.

And then the quantum owner does it again and again. The whole global economy would rapidly become a smoking ruin. Bitcoin would be the least of anyone's concern.

We still don't know what their capabilities are so it might be premature to be concerned, or a suicidal oversight not to be.

It's possible we may not even know whether a viable one exists until the powers that be have had them for quite some time.

[monero.org]

so scary that old accounts wake up just to reply to this thread.

[squatter]

Banks can freeze accounts, rewind, correct it.

And then the quantum owner does it again and again. The whole global economy would rapidly become a smoking ruin. Bitcoin would be the least of anyone's concern.

Quantum-resistant cryptography already exists, so banks and other centralized institutions are in a much better position to recover.

With Bitcoin, we have much bigger problems. Simply switching to quantum-resistant signatures doesn't solve the issue because we can't force people to move their bitcoins to safe addresses. Something like 1/3 of the circulating supply is at risk -- quite possibly more -- due to key reuse, xpub sharing, pay-to-pubkey mining, etc. If a QC attacked Bitcoin in the wild, it would irreparably destroy faith in the currency based on that alone. I don't believe the same is true for banks.

[AverageGlabella]

This is the third topic I have seen about the new quantum computer that Google has released and I'm surprised that there is so much scare mongering among a Bitcoin forum. I'm going to reiterate what I have said in previous threads that this quantum computer is not designed to be a threat to Bitcoin in anyway and is only efficient at very specific tasks so the concerns over mining are redundant as the quantum computer that Google and IBM are developing are not designed to mine Bitcoin and would not be any significant improve over dedicated mining machines.

Quantum-resistant cryptography already exists, so banks and other centralized institutions are in a much better position to recover.

With Bitcoin, we have much bigger problems. Simply switching to quantum-resistant signatures doesn't solve the issue because we can't force people to move their bitcoins to safe addresses. Something like 1/3 of the circulating supply is at risk -- quite possibly more -- due to key reuse, xpub sharing, pay-to-pubkey mining, etc. If a QC attacked Bitcoin in the wild, it would irreparably destroy faith in the currency based on that alone. I don't believe the same is true for banks.

People would be stupid not to move if the encryption was under threat and we could actually force them by requiring them to change addresses if all wallet software developers accepted this change. It would benefit the Bitcoin community and would be the only time I would suggest a forced move to prevent further loss of coins but if people don't move and lose their coins then that would  be entirely their fault for refusing something which is so blatantly obvious.

[gentlemand]

People would be stupid not to move if the encryption was under threat and we could actually force them by requiring them to change addresses if all wallet software developers accepted this change. It would benefit the Bitcoin community and would be the only time I would suggest a forced move to prevent further loss of coins but if people don't move and lose their coins then that would  be entirely their fault for refusing something which is so blatantly obvious.

There are without question millions of inaccessible coins. I'm sure the owners would absolutely love to move them but they don't have the ability to any more. The only people who might be able to in future will be those pesky quantum people.

It's a very pertinent point that I hadn't thought through properly. There's a lot of low hanging fruit that's effectively helpless and dead and then instantly wakes up available to anyone with the right gear in this scenario. People might expect white hats to claim them first but even then that's still not a good look for a supposedly impregnable and immutable system.

[squatter]

Quantum-resistant cryptography already exists, so banks and other centralized institutions are in a much better position to recover.

With Bitcoin, we have much bigger problems. Simply switching to quantum-resistant signatures doesn't solve the issue because we can't force people to move their bitcoins to safe addresses. Something like 1/3 of the circulating supply is at risk -- quite possibly more -- due to key reuse, xpub sharing, pay-to-pubkey mining, etc. If a QC attacked Bitcoin in the wild, it would irreparably destroy faith in the currency based on that alone. I don't believe the same is true for banks.

People would be stupid not to move if the encryption was under threat and we could actually force them by requiring them to change addresses if all wallet software developers accepted this change.

Forcing people to do things goes against the Bitcoin ethos. That's the crux of the problem.

We could give people several years to move their bitcoins to quantum-resistant addresses before destroying them. Even that seems incredibly controversial based on these user reactions.

Forget block size -- this is the real political issue of our day.