The Latest Crypto Price Dip Is Fueled By Fake News Relating to Quantum Computers

[Hydrogen]

Google Claims ‘Quantum Supremacy,’ Marking a Major Milestone in Computing

In what may be a huge milestone in computing, Google says it has achieved "quantum supremacy," an experimental demonstration of the superiority of a quantum computer over a traditional one.

The claim, made in a new scientific paper, is the most serious indication yet that the promise of quantum computers—an emerging but unproven type of machine—is becoming reality, including their potential to solve formerly ungraspable mathematical problems.

Essentially, Google purports to have pulled off a stunt on a quantum computer that no classical machine—not even the world's most powerful supercomputer—can replicate.

Fortune obtained a copy of Google's paper, which was posted to NASA.gov earlier this week before being taken down. The Financial Times first reported the news.

A Google spokesperson declined to confirm the authenticity of the paper and its results. NASA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

A source at Google familiar with the situation suggested, however, that NASA accidentally published the paper early, before its team's claims could be thoroughly vetted through scientific peer review, a process that could take anywhere from weeks to months.

If the paper holds up under the scrutiny of the scientific community, it will herald a watershed moment in quantum science. Its central claim counters doubt that some unforeseen law of nature may prevent quantum computers from operating as hoped.

"Quantum speedup is achievable in a real-world system and is not precluded by any hidden physical laws," the Google researchers write.

Further, they predict that quantum computing power will "grow at a double exponential rate," besting even the exponential rate that defined Moore's Law, a trend that observed traditional computing power to double roughly every two years.

The experiment

The experiment described in the paper sampled randomly generated numbers produced through a specialized scenario involving quantum phenomena. The researchers said they determined that their quantum computer beat regular computers at the task, which involved calculating the output of certain specialized circuits.

"While our processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times, a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task," the researchers said.

Google's quantum computer, dubbed "Sycamore," contained 53-qubits, or "quantum bits," a measure of the machine's potential power. The team scaled back from a 72-qubit device, dubbed "Bristlecone," it had previously designed.

The researchers estimate that performing the same experiment on a Google Cloud server would take 50 trillion hours—too long to be feasible. On the quantum processor, it took only 30 seconds, they said.

"Quantum processors based on superconducting qubits can now perform computations...beyond the reach of the fastest classical supercomputers available today," the researchers write. "To our knowledge, this experiment marks the first computation that can only be performed on a quantum processor."

Outlook

Businesses are hoping the advancement of quantum computers—by tech giants such as Google, IBM, and Intel, as well as startups such as Rigetti Computing—will lead to unprecedented scientific and technical breakthroughs in the coming years. They're eyeing applications from new chemical reactions for the development of drugs, fertilizers, and batteries, to the improvement of optimization algorithms and mathematical modeling.

As exciting as Google's result is, other researchers caution against overhyping it, fearing that inflated expectations of imminent advances will lead to a popped bubble.

Dario Gil, head of IBM Research, advises against using quantum supremacy as a metric with which to measure progress in the field. "The experiment and the 'supremacy' term will be misunderstood by nearly all," he told Fortune.

Gil described the experiment as a highly special case "laboratory experiment" that has "no practical applications." He added, "Quantum computers will never reign 'supreme' over classical computers, but will rather work in concert with them, since each have their unique strengths."

Jim Clarke, Intel Labs' director of quantum hardware, called Google's update "a notable mile marker." He said that "a commercially viable quantum computer will require" many R&D advancements before becoming a reality.

"While development is still at mile one of this marathon, we strongly believe in the potential of this technology," Clarke added.

The Google team, which first wrote about their goal in a Nature article two years ago, appears to be more hopeful about the short-term prospects of its findings. "As a result of these developments, quantum computing is transitioning from a research topic to a technology that unlocks new computational capabilities," the researchers write.

"We are only one creative algorithm away from valuable near-term applications."

https://fortune.com/2019/09/20/google-claims-quantum-supremacy/

....


Google claims they achieved "landmark success" with quantum computers which could break the encryption protecting crypto currencies like bitcoin within the near future. Not only are these claims dubious and ambiguous in nature. They are also unverified and not yet subject to peer review. The claims are also likely to be very misleading as mentioned by Dario Gil in the last bolded quotation in the article.

I don't know how long it will take for the general public to catch on to this news story being a likely fabrication and embellishment. Previous news stories about the price of bitcoin being "artificially manipulated" by tether were by all indications smear pieces published to satisfy political agendas in undermining the public's trust in crypto. As were many other hit pieces published by the media which has typically revealed an unfair bias and prejudice against bitcoin and crypto in general.

FT.com the website on which this news story was 1st published also has a terrible reputation imo in terms of them being one of the worst media outlets for reporting on finance.

[1714780139]

1714780139

[1714780139]

1714780139

[1714780139]

1714780139

[malevolent]

The piece of news from google was a couple days ago, there's no connection between that and todays 'dip'. The price was going sideways for too long, expectations for Bakkt were too high, and we're seeing a large decrease in price following weeks of stability. We might go back to ~$10k but it may 'dip' again.

[Theb]

The price dip we have experienced today is more related to the 40% drop in hash rate we have in Bitcoin mining and even that is a questionable even on why it had dropped that big too fast. Aside from the date on where the news is posted and when the price dropped happened I doubt that the news about quantum computers didn't even reached to the headlines in the crypto industry, even if there are news about it there wasn't a lot of noise for it to begin with.

[hatshepsut93]

The piece of news from google was a couple days ago, there's no connection between that and todays 'dip'. The price was going sideways for too long, expectations for Bakkt were too high, and we're seeing a large decrease in price following weeks of stability. We might go back to ~$10k but it may 'dip' again.

It's all like you say, but that wouldn't make an interesting article for an average crypto investor, people want to get one big single reason why Bitcoin dropped, and it must be something that sounds really scary. Crypto is full of retail investors without any experience in trading before they picked cryptocurrency, which is why these news sites are of so poor quality - they don't have to produce any high quality analysis and overview, a simple clickbait would do much better for them.

[BitHodler]

The price dip we have experienced today is more related to the 40% drop in hash rate we have in Bitcoin mining and even that is a questionable even on why it had dropped that big too fast.

It is not. I checked various sites where hashrate is calculated using more refined metrics, and they indicate a minor fluctuation that isn't even 1/10th of the 40% drop you are referring to.

This price drop is purely related to a negative break of a bearish triangle that we have been in for quite a long period of time. I expect the price to further decline and there is nothing other than that to 'blame' it for.

Similarly, the increase we experienced back in April this year was the result of a positive break of a bullish triangle. There was nothing to point at for the price to go up other than the improved technicals.

[Decksperiment]

Nothing comes new with crypto market's highly volatile nature, in which a little bit of fomo and fud are all but regular occurrences. This is part of a speculative environment that some people correlating it with the news about quantum computers to spread misinformation seems naive that they often react even to a minor fluctuation of crypto price. So I guess we must be accustomed to it.

[Hydrogen]

The piece of news from google was a couple days ago, there's no connection between that and todays 'dip'. The price was going sideways for too long, expectations for Bakkt were too high, and we're seeing a large decrease in price following weeks of stability. We might go back to ~$10k but it may 'dip' again.

This excerpt from the article gives the false impression quantum computers will soon break the encryption, technologies like bitcoin are built upon.

"While our (quantum) processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times, a state-of-the-art supercomputer would require approximately 10,000 years to perform the equivalent task," the researchers said.

Google's quantum computer, dubbed "Sycamore," contained 53-qubits, or "quantum bits," a measure of the machine's potential power. The team scaled back from a 72-qubit device, dubbed "Bristlecone," it had previously designed.

The researchers estimate that performing the same experiment on a Google Cloud server would take 50 trillion hours—too long to be feasible. On the quantum processor, it took only 30 seconds, they said.

Keep in mind many large investors and holders of bitcoin lack technical backgrounds. They don't know this is fake news.

From an investment perspective, many will read the article and immediately dump crypto believing its security is in jeopardy.

News doesn't travel nor disseminate instantaneously. It can take days for the effects of news stories like this one to manifest. Crypto was not explicitly nor directly mentioned in the article and many could read it without making a connection for how it could potentially affect bitcoin markets.

Significant dips in bitcoin's price have always been correlated with fake news releases. Most notable was fake news about tether being "market manipulation". They investigated tether for more than a year and never found any evidence suggesting market manipulation was occurring.

It is very common for spikes in bitcoin's value to be followed by some form of news story designed to keep its price contained.

[seoincorporation]

Hello Hydrogen, i don't think google's quantum computer is behind this price drop. I know it looks like a panic move but if quantum computer break bitcoin we can recover it with an update and a hardfork.

Not only google us behind Quantum computer, they are the ones with the most powerful quantum computer but IBM has a nice toy too. A couple of weeks ago i read some news about the new quantum computer from IBM, you can see more info here: https://www.ibm.com/quantum-computing/

And about quantum computer breaking bitcoin, we have a thread with a nice explanation about how will be hard to see that happening... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5157696.0

[prix]

Google claims they achieved "landmark success" with quantum computers which could break the encryption protecting crypto currencies like bitcoin within the near future.

Google did not say anything like that in the second part of your phrase. All the news that I saw correctly indicated that they were solving only a task divorced from practice.
Even in the quote that you bring everything correctly.
No fake news and speculation. And nowhere in the crypto-forums this news was presented so much, but to those singles asked about effect on crypto, they clearly explained that this was not connected with crypto. At least not in the coming years. I did not see any significant interest in this news. Talked a bit and forgot.

And this has nothing to do with the fall.

[Hydrogen]

Hello Hydrogen, i don't think google's quantum computer is behind this price drop. I know it looks like a panic move but if quantum computer break bitcoin we can recover it with an update and a hardfork.

If bitcoin's encryption is broken, it could take years before its fixed. If it is ever fixed. Encryption being broken in crypto currencies is a doomsday scenario. The only true fix to true quantum computers could be quantum level miners utilizing quantum level encryption.

I agree with notions that quantum computers will never become a reality. There is only so much functionality that can be built into silicon or chips made with other materials. Whether limited by voltage, clock frequency or data density. I think there are hard physical and theoretical limits which could prevent quantum computers from reaching the standards their marketing brochures claim are possible.

#1 Google did not say anything like that in the second part of your phrase.

#2 No fake news and speculation. And nowhere in the crypto-forums this news was presented so much, but to those singles asked about effect on crypto, they clearly explained that this was not connected with crypto. At least not in the coming years. I did not see any significant interest in this news. Talked a bit and forgot.

#3 And this has nothing to do with the fall.

#1  Encryption functions on the basis it would take too long to brute force. Google's claim they can solve problems in "200 seconds" that would normally take "10,000 years" directly implies they are poised to break the encryption standards that technologies like bitcoin are built upon.

#2  Where was it "explained" that this news is "not connected" with crypto?

#3  "This has nothing to do with the fall." Based on what? I have seen nothing credible to suggest otherwise.

[Fundamentals Of]

Discussions on this recent price dip of the majority of cryptocurrencies are found all over the forum, in Bitcoin discussion, in altcoin discussion, in locals, in economics, and most probably in other sections as well. What I find amusing are the different explanations and ideas popping out from everywhere.

This is quite unique though in that this is the only thread where I read about the Quantum Computers having to do with the price dip. And while I highly doubt an existing rumor could possibly affect the prices all of a sudden and so quick, I am already in a state of confusion as to what truly is the reason behind. Everything seems muddled already.

[jseverson]

If bitcoin's encryption is broken, it could take years before its fixed. If it is ever fixed. Encryption being broken in crypto currencies is a doomsday scenario. The only true fix to true quantum computers could be quantum level miners utilizing quantum level encryption.

Not really. A new public key algorithm could be introduced with a simple soft fork, and current ASICs are faster than projected quantum computer clock speeds. The problem is that old and some lost coins can't be protected, since they can't be moved to post-fork addresses.

I agree with notions that quantum computers will never become a reality. There is only so much functionality that can be built into silicon or chips made with other materials. Whether limited by voltage, clock frequency or data density. I think there are hard physical and theoretical limits which could prevent quantum computers from reaching the standards their marketing brochures claim are possible.

I believe they're inevitable, but I don't think they'll be available for commercial use anytime soon. Entities who would have access to ones strong enough to threaten Bitcoin probably won't be interested in it in the first place.

As for the actual topic, I also believe the price movement had something to do with the brief hashrate crash. I'm not sure mainstream readers would actually know that there could be a connection between quantum computers and Bitcoin unless it's explicitly mentioned in the article (and articles I've seen don't).

[casperBGD]

The piece of news from google was a couple days ago, there's no connection between that and todays 'dip'. The price was going sideways for too long, expectations for Bakkt were too high, and we're seeing a large decrease in price following weeks of stability. We might go back to ~$10k but it may 'dip' again.

i agree, it is a matter of technical, there was a sideways trading last days, margin were low, and stop loss triggering enforced decrease, since there was a tone of them within low margin from last week stable price, and that was the main reason for the dip to go this down, we will see how this is going to play further

here is a link to support this opinion
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-price-slides-1000-in-30-minutes-after-margin-calls-at-bitmex

[ajaymukund]

The piece of news from google was a couple days ago, there's no connection between that and todays 'dip'. The price was going sideways for too long, expectations for Bakkt were too high, and we're seeing a large decrease in price following weeks of stability. We might go back to ~$10k but it may 'dip' again.

In fact, the sharks had anticipated this. If you notice, the seller will see signals that there are transactions with more than 1000 bitcoins or more than 2000 bitcoins going on continuously.
and until Bakkt was ineffective, it was a time when sharks rushed to sell bitcoin and flood the market.
I thought it would be difficult to return to the 10k level because I suddenly realized there were two more 2000 bitcoin transactions transferred to the Bitmax exchange. The bear market has arrived and we should be careful.

[Hydrogen]

#1 Not really. A new public key algorithm could be introduced with a simple soft fork

#2 current ASICs are faster (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/09/quantum_computers_could_crack_bitcoin/) than projected quantum computer clock speeds.

#1 A new public key wouldn't defend against quantum brute forcing.

#2 Quantum computers attempt to achieve higher performance through increasing the data density of bits. Rather than exclusively utilizing binary digits with 0's and 1's as today's supercomputers do, quantum computers expand the number of base values utilized in the computational aspect of things. That's where their theoretical performance boost comes from.

A normal supercomputer could be characterized as a person who only has 2 fingers (bits) to count on. While a quantum supercomputer could theoretically have hundreds, thousands or more fingers (bits) which gives them a larger computational density.

I think quantum computers are equivalent to someone attempting to build a moped engine that can produce 200,000 horsepower while consuming the same amount of gasoline as a normal motor. They're supposed to be powered by breakthroughs in quantum physics which will likely never manifest.

I'm not sure mainstream readers would actually know that there could be a connection between quantum computers and Bitcoin unless it's explicitly mentioned in the article (and articles I've seen don't).

The entire premise of encryption is not that its unbreakable. But rather that it would take *too long* to break encryption for it to be feasible.

When tech corps like google release fake news claiming their "quantum computer" can solve problems in "200 seconds" that would take a normal supercomputer "10,000" years to solve.

That is a direct reference to existing encryption standards. That is a definite connection imo.

i agree, it is a matter of technical, there was a sideways trading last days, margin were low, and stop loss triggering enforced decrease, since there was a tone of them within low margin from last week stable price, and that was the main reason for the dip to go this down, we will see how this is going to play further

here is a link to support this opinion
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-price-slides-1000-in-30-minutes-after-margin-calls-at-bitmex

The quoted source says:

A trader, who wished to remain anonymous, said the price drop may have been exacerbated by margin calls and contract liquidations on Bitmex

Usually when this type of topic arises, people point out how single exchanges like bitmex do not represent a substantially significant trading volume. Not enough collective volume to significantly affect the value of bitcoin. There's a corresponding tendency towards arbitrage trading when the value of one commodity is significantly lower on one exchange than it is on another, which also helps to naturally prevents that occurrence via normal market mechanics.

Exchanges affecting price and volume are more typically associated with exchanges that historically carried no commissions on trades. That made it more feasible for market and price manipulation to be effective.

It makes plenty of sense for leveraged short calls on bitmex to concide with fake news that is likely to negatively affect bitcoin's price within the normalized vein of insider trading we've long witnessed in crypto trading. I think that is the most likely conclusion, and the one that will be adopted as more information becomes available.

Although there would seem to be a lot of coordinated market manipulation involved which traders might recognize. In terms of short selling and fear associated with most not being aware of the cause behind the price reduction.

[davis196]

The piece of news from google was a couple days ago, there's no connection between that and todays 'dip'. The price was going sideways for too long, expectations for Bakkt were too high, and we're seeing a large decrease in price following weeks of stability. We might go back to ~$10k but it may 'dip' again.

I agree with that.By the way,I am constantly seeing this "Google's major quantum computing breakthrough" everywhere in my newsfeed.Every rumor about the big G is always exaggerated.I don't think that the vast majority of the crypto users and traders are so naive to believe such news.The reason behind this BTC price drop is somewhere else.

[1Referee]

This is quite unique though in that this is the only thread where I read about the Quantum Computers having to do with the price dip. And while I highly doubt an existing rumor could possibly affect the prices all of a sudden and so quick, I am already in a state of confusion as to what truly is the reason behind. Everything seems muddled already.

People have always tried to link news articles or other events to price drops/increases. It's something people will continue to do because they have no clue about how the charts have turned bearish af in the last couple of weeks with every touch that confirmed the bearish triangular formation. Statistically, the probability of them breaking out to the downside is 75ish%.

If you also look at the extremely low volumes, which is another solid indicator that a huge move is near, mainly because of how the range has been tightening (tigher range = less volatility = less volume), the market was due for a big move. Unfortunately for people, it went down instead of up, but it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Lower levels are due. DCA the market down is the way to go if you want to grow your stack.

[prix]

#1  Encryption functions on the basis it would take too long to brute force. Google's claim they can solve problems in "200 seconds" that would normally take "10,000 years" directly implies they are poised to break the encryption standards that technologies like bitcoin are built upon.

#2  Where was it "explained" that this news is "not connected" with crypto?

#3  "This has nothing to do with the fall." Based on what? I have seen nothing credible to suggest otherwise.

1. Google:

that certain computational tasks might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on a classical processor
...
takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of the quantum circuit 1 million times
...
The benchmark task we demonstrate has an immediate application in generating certi able random numbers[9]; other initial uses for this new computational capability may include optimization optimization [10{12], machine learning[13{ 15], materials science and chemistry [16{18]. However, realizing the full promise of quantum computing (e.g. Shor’s algorithm for factoring) still requires technical leaps to engineer fault-tolerant logical qubits[19{23]
...
To demonstrate quantum supremacy, we compare our quantum processor against state-of-the-art classical com- puters in the task of sampling the output of a pseudo- random quantum circuit

Google claims that they can execute "certain task" faster. Everything else is speculation.

2. From reddit:

Google and NASA have reached quantum supremacy in a year collaboration. What does it mean for future blockchain security?
Google’s Quantum 'Breakthrough' Won't Destroy Bitcoin. Not Yet
Quantum supremacy and the case for quantum security today in blockchain.
Google reportedly attains 'quantum supremacy'

No panic, no fud, calm discussion.

Here on the forum I saw only a couple of posts on this topic and one explanation. No panic too.

3. Based on the fact that there is no panic, that the news is old (4 days) and did not arouse much interest. The Bakkt, for example, create much more movement.

[jseverson]

#1 A new public key wouldn't defend against quantum brute forcing.

I was referring to quantum proof public keys, which are already ready today but have a few issues:

Public-key crypto that is secure against QC does exist, however. Currently, Bitcoin experts tend to favor a cryptosystem based on Lamport signatures.

#2 Quantum computers attempt to achieve higher performance through increasing the data density of bits. Rather than exclusively utilizing binary digits with 0's and 1's as today's supercomputers do, quantum computers expand the number of base values utilized in the computational aspect of things. That's where their theoretical performance boost comes from.

A normal supercomputer could be characterized as a person who only has 2 fingers (bits) to count on. While a quantum supercomputer could theoretically have hundreds, thousands or more fingers (bits) which gives them a larger computational density.

I think quantum computers are equivalent to someone attempting to build a moped engine that can produce 200,000 horsepower while consuming the same amount of gasoline as a normal motor. They're supposed to be powered by breakthroughs in quantum physics which will likely never manifest.

Again, there's a study saying that current ASICs are faster than theoretical quantum computers when it comes to mining because they're specialized:

We find that the proof-of-work used by Bitcoin is relatively resistant to substantial speedup by quantum computers in the next 10 years, mainly because specialized ASIC miners are extremely fast compared to the estimated clock speed of near-term quantum computers

So if this is accurate, Bitcoin doesn't really have to worry too much about getting 51%'d by quantum computers, or at least  not in the near future.

The entire premise of encryption is not that its unbreakable. But rather that it would take *too long* to break encryption for it to be feasible.

When tech corps like google release fake news claiming their "quantum computer" can solve problems in "200 seconds" that would take a normal supercomputer "10,000" years to solve.

That is a direct reference to existing encryption standards. That is a definite connection imo.

Yeah, all I was saying is that I don't think a lot mainstream readers would be able to draw that connection, which is why I believe that it's unlikely for the price slide to be attributable to the news piece.

[negancoin]

There is no real fundamental reasons to why cryptocurrency prices are crashing, However there are two events that seem like are related in some way to this drop which are the launch of bakkt that was disappointment for many people as they were hoping that bakkt will push the price up upside and second one is hashrate which is still mysterious. For google's quantum computer, I don't think is behind this drop.