This is partly why I am concerned anytime I read about internet traffic getting routed through China temporarily in error as the Chinese government can capture the encrypted traffic and potentially decrypt it once they develop the technology to do so.
Bit of an aside, but China are probably the world leaders in quantum cryptography (using quantum mechanics to build quantum-safe solutions that are fundamentally unhackable due to the laws of physics). Have a look at their work with
Micius, part of their QUESS (Quantum Experiments at Space Scale) project. They have already demonstrated quantum key distribution (QKD) wirelessly via satellite, generating a pair of entangled photons using an interferometer. Their aim is to have a global quantum network in place by 2030...
... and if they are that far ahead of the game here, I certainly wouldn't bet against them being first to develop a proper QC capable of real-world decryption.
You are describing something on the other end of the equation, that is something that would serve as a countermeasure to QC cracking encryption.
I don't know if the Chinese scientists came up with this technology/ability on their own, but I do know the Chinese have a long history of stealing technology from the West. If a western company working for a Western government originally created this technology, it may not be publicly known.
I also believe that QC and QC proof encryption are two separate and distinct technologies. I don't believe having the ability to do one does not necessarily make it easier to obtain the technology to have the ability to do the other.
Yeah first person to be able to crack keys 🔑 in a reasonable time will not want to do so in a blatant way.
Just a piece here or there. Better yet maybe take out an exchange wallet since they have claimed being hacked more then once. Just think grab 10000 coins from an exchange. The exchange will claim hack we all will think bullshit. 💯 million score. No one the wiser.
This technology is very valuable. Its value will decline if it is known the technology exists. My prediction is the technology would be more valuable, and probably more costly to create than a few thousand coin. Someone with QC technology that can crack encryption quickly will not only target cryptocurrencies, they will likely be used by governments to steal rival governments' secrets.
The value in being able to trivially steal a rival government's secrets can probably not be measured in dollars, but rather in millions of lives (of its own citizens/military) possibly saved in the event war breaks out.
This technology would be very valuable to whoever creates it, and its value would decrease if it were to be known to exist.
We can't think only in terms of profit-based incentives. Some adversaries -- like nation states or a consortium thereof -- could permanently destroy faith in Bitcoin by releasing this sort of quantum computer in the wild. That may be incentive enough.
Using QC technology to destroy faith in cryptocoins might allow a country to collect more tax revenue, or maintain better control over its citizens, but this is nothing compared to a country's ability to learn what other countries are doing and know. This technology would also prove useful in warfare:
Last year the US
downed an Iranian drone near one of it's warships with technology that disabled the drone. I don't know the specifics of what the US ship did, nor the underlying technology. Imagine a country could prevent another country's war planes from taking off (or from continuing to fly), or could send a signal to change the course of another country's missiles that have been launched.