Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: I don't believe Quantum Computing will ever threaten Bitcoin
by
Macadonian
on 25/06/2019, 08:26:14 UTC
Decided to move this to serious discussion considering the lack of activity but have now decided to move it back to Bitcoin development and technical discussion as I'm interested in hearing others opinions on the quantum computers currently and what they will be like in the future especially some of the links which have been posted in this thread.

I'll be keeping a set of useful quotes here with external links which I find interesting and would love to see some others expand on the existing discussion and hopefully offer some new information and insights.

Useful links posted on this topic:


First — probably you will be interested in reading about Neven's law (https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-nevens-law-describe-quantum-computings-rise-20190618/). It is not a "law" of course but an interesting thing to keep in mind.
Second — the most powerful quantum chip for today is 128-qubit chip produced by Rigetti (https://medium.com/rigetti/the-rigetti-128-qubit-chip-and-what-it-means-for-quantum-df757d1b71ea).
Third — how many quits you need to crack a blockchain. It depends on a type of encryption, but the point is, it is 2300+ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography#Quantum_computing_attacks)
Fourth — Intel thinks we'll get 1000 quits by 2024 (https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/computing/hardware/intels-new-path-to-quantum-computing) and ECDSA will be at risk by 2027 (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.10377.pdf).
Fifth — implement post-quantum encryption to existing blockchains? This is a close to impossible task.
Sixth — That's what NIST says about PQC in their project (probably all of you aware of it but https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum-Cryptography):


We've mentioned a few times how quickly this field is advancing... yesterday a team at the University of New South Wales announced they have achieved a
200x speed improvement on a 2 qubit gate!




As I've mentioned before, I think that whilst a lot of work has gone into building quantum-resistant systems using classical computers, one of the best avenues of investigation is defence using quantum computers. There has been plenty of research into various methods of Quantum Key Distribution, and this research continues with approaches such as Kak’s three-stage protocol. Perhaps this will be quantum-attack-proof, or perhaps not. But the key here is that defence is actually moving faster than attack.