How will Quantum computing affect Bitcoin?

[ranochigo]

Of course, this would require a fork, and not everyone would be willing to move or some people aren't going to move. At that point, you'd probably expect that a lot of coins would be available to target, but if we have enough notice, and good enough reasons to fork then I would expect the majority of people would move their coins to the quantum resistant algorithms.  

So, this just leaves the coins which have been lost prior, those that didn't want to move, or those that didn't hear about the fork. These are risks, and unfortunately will happen when it comes to it. These coins could be targeted, however if they've been given good enough reason to move, and enough timeframe then they themselves are taking the risk of leaving their coins there. So, they accept the risk of losing them.

We could burn them, given enough notice that does seem very extreme though, and I'm not sure that's the best decision. Undoubtedly, any coins that are left that can be exploited, will likely be exploited eventually, and that would likely have an effect on the short term value of Bitcoin.

Most of Satoshi's block rewards are vulnerable; Bitcoin Core was configured for P2PK in the Coinbase transaction and that makes up for approximately a million (IIRC) of his coin or at least those that weren't moved or presumed lost/burned. Considering that each address has 50 coins, and at current prices, that would be north of 3 million per address. That is assuming Bitcoin doesn't grow further than 60K, which is hard to tell. The economic impact of losing that many coins won't bode well.

[lifeforcepools]

Now is not the best time to think about quantum computers. Let's solve the problems that we have now.

[Welsh]

Most of Satoshi's block rewards are vulnerable; Bitcoin Core was configured for P2PK in the Coinbase transaction and that makes up for approximately a million (IIRC) of his coin or at least those that weren't moved or presumed lost/burned. Considering that each address has 50 coins, and at current prices, that would be north of 3 million per address. That is assuming Bitcoin doesn't grow further than 60K, which is hard to tell. The economic impact of losing that many coins won't bode well.

From a economic point of view, yeah that would likely have disastrous economic short term effects, but I'm not entirely sure that long term effects would be negative. If they were to be stolen, and we don't consider the morality in that right now, it would mean that there's more coins in circulation, which depending on what point of view your looking at might devalue the amount of coins, because as you know some people treat lost coins as "donations" to the network.

I'm still convinced, it will be a very long time until anyone with a motive to do it i.e common criminals, will be able to access quantum computers. I'm not convinced that the government, whatever that one might be would have any real motive. I think we like to think they're threatened by it, but I don't think in its current state it is.

I don't know the ideal solution, ideally we should never really assume coins that haven't been moved for a very long time, are "lost" so "burning" them without permission from its owner doesn't quite sit well with me. So, now to move onto the ethics of dealing with this scenario; is it better to burn the coins without permission in an attempt to better everyone else using the currency or is it better to allow those coins to be attacked, despite their owner having lost them, whether that's through choice, mistakes or not being around anymore. Its something which will need a decision, but quite frankly I'm not quite sure what's the correct way of going about it, obviously this has been brought up a lot over the years, and I think most would lean to the greater good, but I'm not a big fan of that viewpoint.

This is why I'm hoping people far brighter than me are in charge of this decision. I don't know the true economic damages that something like this would cause. If its just short term, which I believe short term would be the worse of the two, then that isn't so bad for a currency. If it has longer term effects, that could be detrimental to the survival of the currency (which I find implausible) then that's something that I imagine that needs to be taken into consideration. Even then though, burning coins that don't belong to you doesn't bode well with me. My question, and this might be more of a rhetorical question is; does anyone really know the true implications that it would have on Bitcoin?

[Twentyonepaylots]

Miners and hackers will be the ones to benefit the most about the public release of Quantum Computers. Their theoretical power is enough to ensure that no GPUs will be needed anymore in mining. Thus reducing the chances of GPU Scalping as well, keeping the PC gaming industry alive. On the downside however, hackers getting a hold of quantum computers will make it incredibly easier for them to tap into virtually everyone's private addresses, so hacking and stealing bitcoins will be regular news to us.

[Argoo]

I also read some articles about quantum computers and it would greatly affect Bitcoin or Crypto world. But I know producing a quantum computer quite expensive, very high cost. And the current quantum computer has not been widely used, and will it really affect the cryptographic money? That has not been proven. So you don't need to worry about quantum computers

Of course, quantum computers will have a big impact on the existence of cryptocurrency. An increase in computing power will have both a positive effect on its mining and a negative effect on the possibility of breaking our secret keys. However, we will definitely be able to find out when they appear enough for us to see the practical results of their capabilities.
As for their expensive cost, then with their mass production and the improvement of their production, their value will fall. I have already read that quantum computers of low power are installed in schools in China to study their principle of operation and capabilities.

[Obito]

I never really pondered on this topic of qantum computing since I won't be alive when it becomes available for personal use. So my answer to that is that quantum computing is only going to be a threat to bitcoin if it becomes available for public use, I think right now we don't have to worry about it because they don't even have the complete understanding of it so don't wrap your beads too much about it.

[nebuch]

For me quantum computer seems complete to solve many issues including blockchain. However I think we cannot yet say the accurate thing what quantum computer can actually do. The actual scenario matter before we can conclude that quantum computer will effect bitcoin and Cryptos because of this and that and so on.... Let us wait further official launching which I think it takes more time as it is complex.

[choechristian00]

It has been explained to me, albeit, in layman's terms, that one of the reasons our modern cryptography works so well on classical computers is that they rely on prime factorization which classical computers don't do so well. This has been key to maintaining our computers and networks secured. One of the things Quantum computers do better than classical computers is prime factorization. How will the advent of Quantum computing impact cryptography? Will technologies like blockchains and bitcoin be affected?

In the cryptocurrency community, there is a nagging fear of quantum computing. Is it possible that it can decrypt cryptocurrencies and the encryption that protects them? I'm not sure how close that is. Do the headlines about "quantum superiority" imply that my personal information is at risk?

The short answer is no. But let's take a closer look at this phenomenon and try to figure out why this is the case and how quantum computing works.But let us delve a little further into this phenomenon to see why this is the case and how quantum computing can deal with cryptocurrencies.

To begin, let's describe quantum computing and the classical computing we're all familiar with, and see how the two terms compare and contrast. Quantum computing is similar to “classical” pre-computer computing in terms of paradigm.Quantum computing is approximately equivalent to "classical" pre-1900s physics and "modern" physics, which includes Einstein's relativity and quantum physics insights.

As a result, quantum computers are not uniformly better than classical computers, which will be immediately important to the debate. When people talk about "quantum dominance," as stated by Google GOOG -2.4 percent and/or China, they just mean that a quantum machine will perform a task better than a classical computer, possibly one that is impossible to perform for any purpose.