The bubble has popped, slow decline to $3 on the way

[Hexadecibel]

Nope.  The Remulaks bought some with their intergalactic morzorks.

oh, good

[Qoheleth]

My personal belief is that there exist a Quantum computer right now that could theoreticly break sha-2. Just how quickly I do not know, maybe 6 months a year. Not feasible to use against sha digesting yet. I do not believe however that such a machine would be in a position to be used for anything other than some very predetermined set of uses.

There's no known quantum algorithm that makes breaking SHA-2 non-exponential in the digest size. Grover's algorithm only gives bits/2 complexity for preimage attacks, and bits/3 complexity for collision attacks.

Like I said before, the danger isn't to the hash algorithm. It's to the transaction algorithm. And you only need to break one private key to get all the coins at a particular address.

So, my guess is that a quantum computer with a single qubit could theoretically crack every key in the blockchain, but it would just take longer than if you had multiple qubits, and the more qubits you have, the faster it could be done.

I'm reasonably certain that this is incorrect, and that, more specifically, to find a 256-bit solution you need a 256-qubit quantum computer.

[the joint]

So, my guess is that a quantum computer with a single qubit could theoretically crack every key in the blockchain, but it would just take longer than if you had multiple qubits, and the more qubits you have, the faster it could be done.

I'm reasonably certain that this is incorrect, and that, more specifically, to find a 256-bit solution you need a 256-qubit quantum computer.

Very well could be.

[realnowhereman]

First, a straw-man does not make an argument invalid or implausible.  It just doesn't make it sound.  I think your logic needs a bit of ship-shaping since claiming a straw-man does nothing to defeat the assertion.

Quite so; argumentum ad logicam is the fallacious argument that because a conclusion is the end of a chain of bad logic that makes it wrong.  Of course it doesn't.  I might say "apples fall from trees because fairies cut their stalks". Apples definitely do fall from trees.  That doesn't mean fairies cut them down though (to conclude so would be to commit another logic error, affirmation of the consequent, and I already know you're familiar with that one... "if QC then No Evidence; No Evidence therefore QC").

However, what we're arguing about here is whether your logic is fallacious or not.  Your straw man was to insert a load of conclusions about my opinion on extraterrestrials into my mouth then demolish (using your own special brand of logic) what you had inserted.  That is the textbook definition of a straw man.  A straw man is proof of nothing, and is without doubt a fallacious argument.  Hence why I chose to not enter into debate with you about things I did not say.

None of that changes the fact that you resorted to use of a straw man to protect your wibble about advanced quantum computers being real.

Don't give me lectures on logic.

Yes; I can quite see that is a waste of time.  However, it amuses me, and perhaps it amuses some others reading.

I'm saying the assertion I made is what I believe, and that's why I believe that you're a fool who's wasting his time trying to 'logically' disassemble my belief with your belief (i.e. that my assertion is false).

Seriously?  Your defence now is that you weren't debating whether your belief was true or not; you were debating whether it's true that you hold it.  Let me save you the trouble: I'm quite sure you believe your own beliefs.  There is no externally observable source that any of us can use to prove or disprove what thoughts are in your head, so I am happy to believe your evidence in that respect.

You seem to have shifted your ground though; the debate was not "does the joint believe advanced quantum computers are real?", the debate was "are advanced quantum computers real?".  Here's the evidence for that being exactly what the debate was:

quantum computing is no threat to bitcoin.

BTW, if you think that the current publicity on quantum computing is 'up-to-date,' you're kidding yourself.  How do I know this?  Simple.  If I (or you) was in a position of ultimate authority, would I restrict the amount of information that actually reaches the public regarding technological advances?  Fuck yes I would.

tl;dr

Quantum computing is far more advanced than any publication will lead you to believe.

You chose to slap down Hexadecibal with your superior knowledge of what quantum computers are doing in secret.

Now you're telling us that what you were actually doing was parading your beliefs, not knowledge.  You have no knowledge of any advanced quantum computer; you have not designed one, you have not seen one; you have not heard reports of one; you can't even point to some evidence of a problem that one might have solved, revealing itself to us.  You offer "belief" as your justification for condescendingly telling Hexadecibal how deluded he was.  Why does your belief that they exist trump his/our belief that they don't?  Your belief is better than his, right?

That is simply religious bigotry.

Oh... sorry, I "believe" that it's religious bigotry.  Using your own logic then, my position is unimpeachable, so I expect nothing but silence from you in response save you be branded a hypocrite (he says expecting no such thing).

[Piper67]

It's like the Hitch is back from the dead, I tell you!

I for one am amused.

Oh, and the joint could use a little Karl Popper in hi free time.

[nimda]

Rofl. That is all. Carry on.

[sadpandatech]

My personal belief is that there exist a Quantum computer right now that could theoreticly break sha-2. Just how quickly I do not know, maybe 6 months a year. Not feasible to use against sha digesting yet. I do not believe however that such a machine would be in a position to be used for anything other than some very predetermined set of uses.

There's no known quantum algorithm that makes breaking SHA-2 non-exponential in the digest size. Grover's algorithm only gives bits/2 complexity for preimage attacks, and bits/3 complexity for collision attacks.

Like I said before, the danger isn't to the hash algorithm. It's to the transaction algorithm. And you only need to break one private key to get all the coins at a particular address.

So, my guess is that a quantum computer with a single qubit could theoretically crack every key in the blockchain, but it would just take longer than if you had multiple qubits, and the more qubits you have, the faster it could be done.

I'm reasonably certain that this is incorrect, and that, more specifically, to find a 256-bit solution you need a 256-qubit quantum computer.

rock on. *runs off to read http://qbnets.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/grovers-algorithm-for-dummies/




edit; oh OP, $6.49

[RodeoX]

Wow, this is a slow decline. We are up more than 10% at the moment. I'm no math whiz, how long will it take to get to $3 at 10% growth?

[mccorvic]

Wow, this is a slow decline. We are up more than 10% at the moment. I'm no math whiz, how long will it take to get to $3 at 10% growth?

Don't mock the flawless speculation of the expert speculators on the speculation board.  They have charts with MS Paint lines drawn on them to back them up.

[RodeoX]

True, no logic could stand up to an infographic. 

The funny thing is that that there is no such thing as a financial expert, IMO. Even the very best of the best on Wall St. just barely do better than random chance. This has been studied extensively.  Personally I have made most of my real money in the stock market betting against the common wisdom and going with my gut + fundamentals. Using that I liquidated just before the tech bubble crash and again just before the current global collapse.
 I thank Laurie Anderson. I saw her in concert one night in '08 and a "sell" light went off in my head. Here is the song that did it, enjoy:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvhfSH9CbCw   

She is awesome!

[Piper67]

Wow, this is a slow decline. We are up more than 10% at the moment. I'm no math whiz, how long will it take to get to $3 at 10% growth?

Anything is possible in the world of quantum physics... even growing during a steady decline 

[trogdorjw73]

First, a straw-man does not make an argument invalid or implausible.  It just doesn't make it sound.  I think your logic needs a bit of ship-shaping since claiming a straw-man does nothing to defeat the assertion.

Quite so; argumentum ad logicam is the fallacious argument that because a conclusion is the end of a chain of bad logic that makes it wrong.  Of course it doesn't.  I might say "apples fall from trees because fairies cut their stalks". Apples definitely do fall from trees.  That doesn't mean fairies cut them down though (to conclude so would be to commit another logic error, affirmation of the consequent, and I already know you're familiar with that one... "if QC then No Evidence; No Evidence therefore QC").

However, what we're arguing about here is whether your logic is fallacious or not.  Your straw man was to insert a load of conclusions about my opinion on extraterrestrials into my mouth then demolish (using your own special brand of logic) what you had inserted.  That is the textbook definition of a straw man.  A straw man is proof of nothing, and is without doubt a fallacious argument.  Hence why I chose to not enter into debate with you about things I did not say.

None of that changes the fact that you resorted to use of a straw man to protect your wibble about advanced quantum computers being real.

Don't give me lectures on logic.

Yes; I can quite see that is a waste of time.  However, it amuses me, and perhaps it amuses some others reading.

I'm saying the assertion I made is what I believe, and that's why I believe that you're a fool who's wasting his time trying to 'logically' disassemble my belief with your belief (i.e. that my assertion is false).

Seriously?  Your defence now is that you weren't debating whether your belief was true or not; you were debating whether it's true that you hold it.  Let me save you the trouble: I'm quite sure you believe your own beliefs.  There is no externally observable source that any of us can use to prove or disprove what thoughts are in your head, so I am happy to believe your evidence in that respect.

You seem to have shifted your ground though; the debate was not "does the joint believe advanced quantum computers are real?", the debate was "are advanced quantum computers real?".  Here's the evidence for that being exactly what the debate was:

quantum computing is no threat to bitcoin.

BTW, if you think that the current publicity on quantum computing is 'up-to-date,' you're kidding yourself.  How do I know this?  Simple.  If I (or you) was in a position of ultimate authority, would I restrict the amount of information that actually reaches the public regarding technological advances?  Fuck yes I would.

tl;dr

Quantum computing is far more advanced than any publication will lead you to believe.

You chose to slap down Hexadecibal with your superior knowledge of what quantum computers are doing in secret.

Now you're telling us that what you were actually doing was parading your beliefs, not knowledge.  You have no knowledge of any advanced quantum computer; you have not designed one, you have not seen one; you have not heard reports of one; you can't even point to some evidence of a problem that one might have solved, revealing itself to us.  You offer "belief" as your justification for condescendingly telling Hexadecibal how deluded he was.  Why does your belief that they exist trump his/our belief that they don't?  Your belief is better than his, right?

That is simply religious bigotry.

Oh... sorry, I "believe" that it's religious bigotry.  Using your own logic then, my position is unimpeachable, so I expect nothing but silence from you in response save you be branded a hypocrite (he says expecting no such thing).

File me among the amused. For my part, I've studied computer science and cryptography, and while quantum computing could radically alter the landscape of computers and encryption algorithms, I file it in the same category as FTL (Faster Than Light) travel: pure science fiction, at least for now. I figure if someone figures out how to make a true quantum computer, they'll probably also be the ones to create an FTL drive. Even better "proof" that quantum computing is nowhere near being ready for actual use: Dan Brown wrote about it in his (horrible) techno-thriller Digital Fortress. The NSA already has a giant supercomputer that uses superconducting quantum computing chips to crack all encryption codes everywhere!

[sadpandatech]

File me among the amused. For my part, I've studied computer science and cryptography, and while quantum computing could radically alter the landscape of computers and encryption algorithms, I file it in the same category as FTL (Faster Than Light) travel: pure science fiction, at least for now. I figure if someone figures out how to make a true quantum computer, they'll probably also be the ones to create an FTL drive. Even better "proof" that quantum computing is nowhere near being ready for actual use: Dan Brown wrote about it in his (horrible) techno-thriller Digital Fortress. The NSA already has a giant supercomputer that uses superconducting quantum computing chips to crack all encryption codes everywhere!

I don't think we can really disagree with your sentiments. And doens't the NSA just wish that were true. But, let's reel in the FTL travel a bit to something more achievable.
FTL communications. As corny as this may sound the best place I know of to read up on the conept of FTL communications is from EVEonline.com  for the space based mmo video game.

 Very much sci-fi but an intriguing idea none the less; "The roots of the solution lay in an ancient paradox, often called the EPR paradox, the name shrouded in mystery. The EPR paradox is famous for contradicting quantum physics in some very important ways. Specifically it shows another old physic theory, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, to be untrue. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, believed to be named after a place or a person, affirms that the exact state of quantum particle cannot be determined with full accuracy, no matter how refined the measurement equipment is. The classical example being the measurement of the velocity and position of a free particle: to be able to measure the position of a particle you must be able to 'see' it. This means that you have to illuminate it at least with one photon. But the collision between the photon and the particle changes the velocity of the particle, thus making it impossible to determine what the velocity was before the position was measured."
http://community.eveonline.com/background/communication/
http://community.eveonline.com/background/communication/comm_02.asp

edit; some real literature on EPR paradox - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-epr/

edit; @ OP - $6.55

[Mousepotato]

What bubble?

thats the one.

For the groups that actually use bitcoin as a currency a drop to a flat $3 price would be extremely welcome.
I will create the bet shortly.

Link plz?

[humanitee]

Wilder believed that tops and bottoms are indicated when RSI goes above 70 or drops below 30. Traditionally, RSI readings greater than the 70 level are considered to be in overbought territory, and RSI readings lower than the 30 level are considered to be in oversold territory. In between the 30 and 70 level is considered neutral, with the 50 level a sign of no trend.

In addition to Wilder's original theories of RSI interpretation, Andrew Cardwell has developed several new interpretations of RSI to help determine and confirm trend. First, Cardwell noticed that uptrends generally traded between RSI 40 and 80, while downtrends usually traded between RSI 60 and 20.

Not enough citations, people with experience please chime in. According to that no bubble may exist, could just be an uptrend.

[Vandroiy]

Now, before the quantum discussion goes out of hand.

Here's what I know about quantum computing.  Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Whereas in classical computing you start from the ground up and essentially try to add more bit processors to compute information faster, in quantum computing you're essentially starting with the sum of all information and trying to devise a method to find the specific information you're looking for.  In other words, classical computing is like starting with questions and trying to find the answers; quantum computing is like starting with ALL answers and trying to find the right question or set of questions which will give you the specific answer you're looking for.

A quantum computer is like starting with a library containing all books that have ever been written and will ever be written.  A single qubit can contain an infinite amount of information.   This in and of itself doesn't make for a useful library.  How do you know where to find the book you're looking for?  Moreover, when you begin to look (thus, you are trying to make calculated observations to find the book you want), the calculation you make on one piece of observed information changes the configuration of all the other information due to entanglement.  In a way, I think of it as almost like a giant, entangled rubix cube.  I would presume that adding more and more cubits allows you to process these calculated observations faster and allow you to retrieve the information you're looking for more quickly.

So, my guess is that a quantum computer with a single qubit could theoretically crack every key in the blockchain, but it would just take longer than if you had multiple qubits, and the more qubits you have, the faster it could be done.

I guess I'll give it a try. It's really not quite possible to explain quantum mechanics with classical analogies though, so just accept that reality is... different with QM. For example, working on a superposition of all return values of a function, what you call "ALL answers", is not the same as working on all return values of a classical function. You don't actually get all of them, they're just... partially there, for the lack of a better expression.

The information contained in a qubit is infinite because its state space is, for all we know, infinitely large. However, you cannot extract more than one bit of information when you read a qubit to get an actual answer! Also, reading a qubit destroys its state! So the trick lies in transformations done on the information in the system's quantum mechanical state space, before you read out the answer.

In fact, it is very complicated and counter-intuitive to write algorithms for quantum computation devices. For all I know, we know about three useful algorithms. Granted, two of them are real breakthroughs: you can search an item in an unsorted list in sqrt(N) complexity (yes, this should sound absolutely impossible if you think about it) and decompose numbers into their prime factors in polynomial complexity! The latter is called Shor's Algorithm.

With one qubit alone, you can do almost nothing. If you have one unitary transform on it, you get a great random bit generator, which can come in handy, but is absolutely useless to break Bitcoin. To actually break Bitcoin, you need Shor's Algorithm, and that means you need to operate on qubit-strings large enough to perform calculations with Bitcoin's keys! I don't know the exact requirements, but it's really really really far off from where we stand. Remember people managed something like 4 qubits and factoring 15 or something.

Here's how a group did that: http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1398

Note that this is nowhere near what a normal person imagines as a computer. We're talking enormous absurd setups creating interference patterns in cold vacuum chambers. To factor the number 15. Yes, it's 3*5, duh, and this implementation scales horribly.

It's really interesting to think about quantum computation, but don't panic too much about it. If someone shouts "heureka" and cracks Bitcoin-size keys, it might as well be a mathematician or whoever found something everyone else overlooked. If anything, be afraid of C++, which is a sloppy language in terms of security yet used for the main Bitcoin client. A simple bug in a compiler might turn out as fatal as one in the Bitcoin source, and I hope you remember how often Bitcoin already had dangerous problems of the kind. Billions of Bitcoins, baby! Been there, done that.

TL;DR: DON'T PANIC!

[nimda]

Nonono, panic, and sell your bitcoins to me for higher than what I predict them to fall to!

[impulse]

So long as we're throwing wild personal opinions around, here is my own. I don't believe that the military or government has any computer technology that is significantly more advanced than what we are seeing in known academic research laboratories and private research programs.  Even if they wera able to create a super-quantum computer, the advantage would be so short lived against the rest of the world following behind, I don't think it would even make sense from a budgetary and strategic point of view. I remember in the 90's there was a lot of speculation about the kind of incredible computer technology that the government and military must have had, because we were coming from a time when the highest technology traditionally came from government and military programs. That's not really true anymore, and it wasn't really true then either. As it turns out, the government did not have any computer technology that was superior to technology held by any number of academic and private institutions and I don't think this has changed, especially in these economic times. I think this idea is no different than the formerly widely held belief that the american military is so advanced and powerful that they would certainly walk all over any technologically inferior country like say, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan with no trouble whatsoever. It's all smoke and mirrors, anyone remember the Aurora aircaft? Off the top of my head the only project I can think of that succeeded in creating a super technology well ahead of the curve, was the Manhatten project, but even that supremacy was very short lived. Even the internet, their greatest and most successful endeavor, did not experience its renaissance until it was opened to public and private institutions. They simply cannot compete on their own aginst that open market, not anymore.

[Hexadecibel]

So long as we're throwing wild personal opinions around, here is my own. I don't believe that the military or government has any computer technology that is significantly more advanced than what we are seeing in known academic research laboratories and private research programs.  Even if they wera able to create a super-quantum computer, the advantage would be so short lived against the rest of the world following behind, I don't think it would even make sense from a budgetary and strategic point of view. I remember in the 90's there was a lot of speculation about the kind of incredible computer technology that the government and military must have had, because we were coming from a time when the highest technology traditionally came from government and military programs. That's not really true anymore, and it wasn't really true then either. As it turns out, the government did not have any computer technology that was superior to technology held by any number of academic and private institutions and I don't think this has changed, especially in these economic times. I think this idea is no different than the formerly widely held belief that the american military is so advanced and powerful that they would certainly walk all over any technologically inferior country like say, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan with no trouble whatsoever. It's all smoke and mirrors, anyone remember the Aurora aircaft? Off the top of my head the only project I can think of that succeeded in creating a super technology well ahead of the curve, was the Manhatten project, but even that supremacy was very short lived. Even the internet, their greatest and most successful endeavor, did not experience its renaissance until it was opened to public and private institutions. They simply cannot compete on their own aginst that open market, not anymore.

I was in the Army 2003-2007. Saw a lot of things. Nothing of which made me think our (my) government was all powerful technology wise, when the insurgence were taking out our armored assets with homemade explosives.

Friend of mine was military intelligence with top secrete clearance. While he did not divulge anything to me (rightly so) he did say the world was a lot more mundane than what people would like to believe...

[RoloTonyBrownTown]

All the speculators realized that they were the only ones playing the game.
no higher  than $5 dec 31st.

If you get scared, Im offering to buy out any large holders now at $4.50.

Fail.