Quote from: arcmetal on July 10, 2019, 09:10:23 AM

The problem has always simply been that power generation is centralized, concentrated in a few hands. Large power plants producing it, and large elaborate distribution lines to deliver it. This is not how it could have been, but a few decided it should be this way, for obvious reasons, for the sake of profit.

But things have been slowly changing since solar panels have been mass produced, getting cheaper, and gaining in efficiencies. With decentralized power ( ... decentralized, funny aye Tongue

) there would be no need for large power plants or expansive distribution networks. At worst there may still be a need for small local power distribution centers for emergencies, but nothing more. ... The cost would solely be the production, and installation of the solar panel hardware, and the energy free. There has always been animosity from those that wish to profit from centralized power, and this will continue until the end. The end being fully decentralized power.

Throughout history energy has been commoditized, but in this modern age this is no longer necessary. In this universe, besides space and time, energy is the most abundant thing. The water we drink, or the oxygen we breathe is far more rare than energy, and yet we pay each month for power.

Nuclear power, fission or fusion, when developed enough, and made small enough will be useful for areas that have little to no access to the sun. Like maybe Pluto.

Or, interstellar travel.

I don't see free power as a threat to bitcoin. Free power may seem to make the cost of producing btc less, but then any extra cash a miner has would be used for more mining hardware, increasing btc's difficulty, which increases its cost of production, which helps to increase its price, and so on.

Although most countries charge for power they also charge for water and can sometimes be very expensive depending on the country that you live in. I would essentially agree with most of your points other than the statement that bigger and more industrialized power plants won't be needed when we are relating it back to quantum computers. In general life I would agree but when providing the energy necessary to house a quantum computer and run it at its most efficient conditions this would probably not be sufficient with solar panels or would be a logistical nightmare. Nuclear fusion will probably be used but as you touched upon this will be in the hands of the few and I don't think a cheap and efficient solution like nuclear fusion (in theory) will be distributed to the masses. This will probably be something which is exclusive to governments and I can see them justifying this by stating that nuclear fusion is dangerous and is frowned upon by most of the world however they need to have emergency fail safes in place just in case their country goes without power. Playing on peoples heartstrings about keeping hospitals running and saving lives and that will be the only reason I can see nuclear fusion being first of all accepted by the community and secondly developed by the government. They'll use it for emergencies and military operations only. However who's not to say that they won't run their quantum computers off of this energy and deem it military operations. After all factoring could break many different algorithms and they could potentially get intel from their enemies. Bitcoin will probably be an enemy to the governments and who's to say they won't try attacking it. This is all based on assumption and is all theoretically however I do like to imagine the sort of power which would come with quantum computers running on nuclear fusion. Luckily the masses won't have access to both of these technologies and only governments and possibly the wealthy elite will which means there aren't too many potential attackers to the current algorithm that Bitcoin uses. Which probably means that we have an increased amount of time to figure out the steps in protecting against quantum computers.

Quote from: Cnut237 on July 10, 2019, 08:30:45 AM

Quote from: TheWolf666 on July 09, 2019, 06:16:20 PM

Quantum computers are not going to replace the computers as we know them. They can be considered like a GPU that will be attached to a normal computer, providing speed for some limited operations. Their usage will be very limited specially at the beginning and their price very high.

I agree that quantum computing doesn't offer an advantage in every situation. I think there is often a perception that quantum computers are just faster than conventional computers, but that's not really the case. Where they excel is in dealing with extremely complex problems. The advantage of a quantum computer is that the complexity scales differently.

A conventional computer can solve a problem 'x' in 'y' seconds, taking 'z' number of steps.
If you build a faster conventional computer, it can maybe solve problem 'x' in 'y/2' seconds, so twice as fast - but it will still take 'z' number of computational steps to do so.
The advantage of a quantum computer is that it can drastically reduce 'z', the number of steps required. This is why they are 'faster'.

It's quite fascinating when you get into it. If you are interested, have a look at Grover's algorithm.

I have mentioned in a couple of my replies that quantum computers are exceptional at only certain tasks but actually quite lackluster in other areas. They are not personal computers and wouldn't be useful to the majority of people. However those that are looking to crack currently used algorithms and via using the quantum computers exceptional talent at factoring they are very useful. Even if quantum computers became available to the masses it just wouldn't appeal to them. I don't have any interest in cracking algorithms for an example but militaries and governments probably do. Enemies to Bitcoin probably do.

Quote from: PrimeNumber7 on July 10, 2019, 06:53:00 AM

I speculate, most likely it will be a government - one of the five eyes, or China - or an entity that is a de-facto arm of a government, and I think they will absolutely be a malicious actor. It will be in this entity's interest to keep the fact they have the QC technology sufficient to break ECDSA and other encryption algorithms a state secret because it will allow their government to spy on their enemies for longer.

If a government develops QC technology that can be run efficiently, and use said technology to steal a few hundred thousand bitcoins, the coin they steal would be worth billions as of when they steal the coin, but its value would quickly plummet once many people start complaining their coin was stolen after practicing good security practices. It would also be a warning to other governments, banks, communications companies, and others to upgrade their encryption systems ASAP, and to stop using "now broken" encryption systems immediately, even if this means taking services offline for some time.

If a government were to develop QC tech that can efficiently break modern encryption algorithms, I think they would prefer to use it to decrypt intercepted communications via the internet and elsewhere, with the hope their enemies will continue using "broken" encryption algorithms. Last month, a bunch of European internet traffic was rerouted via China for two hours, and there have been similar incidents before. These incidents could be true errors, or they could have been the Chinese government collecting encrypted internet traffic hoping to decrypt it, with current or future technology.

There are currently a number of different countries and governments which are extremely hostile to Bitcoin and others which aren't sure what to do in terms of banning it or allowing the people to use it. China is a scary one due to their history of not caring what others think and how they severely limit and censor their population. You make a excellent point that anyone with a quantum computer capable of breaking algorithms will probably not do it on a mass scale and will probably make targeted attacks to prevent everyone switching over to a quantum resistant algorithm.