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In the spirit of don’t trust verify.

My neighbor has been asking me a lot of good faith questions about bitcoin today. He only knows what’s on the news and small sound bites ect from people who arnt bitcoiners.

I’m not a software guy.

If anyone could help give an insightful answer to these two questions below it would be amazing and appreciated!

Perhaps you could be my middle man for this one question.

1) "Does AI pose a threat to the time chain, if not why not? if so why so and in what way?"

2)“Hmm I wonder what would happen if an AI designed a quantum computer, then used it to start mining.... 🤔”

This is out of my realm past saying trust me, people are working on this and if the internet goes down, bitcoin is compromised, the power stops, the only thing that matters is staying alive.

Thanks everyone⚡️🧡🌹

Bohemia 2y ago

AI guided by humans could perform a 51% attack just like any nation state could. This requires a gargantuan expenditure of resources. We're talking in the billions at this point...equipment, space, manpower, electricity. As hash rate increases, the expenditure required goes up as well, making this likelihood less and less as we speak.

For 2, NIST has been working on quantum proof algorithms, publishing in 2024 I believe. They also just announced a project on helping corporations and agencies migrate to post-quantum cryptographic standards. It will take a lot of work bc it's not a simple transition. I imagine Bitcoin the protocol will have to upgrade from SHA256 to a quantum proof algorithm and this will require network consensus, just like any other change does. Every government, corporation, app, etc has to plan for this and Bitcoin will be no different.

https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/2023-04/pqc-migration-nist-sp-1800-38a-preliminary-draft.pdf

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Discussion

Bohemia 2y ago

Also I missed the mark on 2 but im gonna drink more coffee and give it another go.

Bitcoin will continue to pump out blocks every 10 minutes and adjust difficulty based on hashrate or total computing power, AI miners included.

Petr 2y ago

Can quantum computer find private keys in reasonable time?

Bohemia 2y ago

That's the challenge, yes for asymmetric encryption keys, it can, is my understanding.

Encryption is based on reallyyy hard math. Quantum comps can do math realllyyyy fast.

Basically any keyspace created by the assymmetric cipher can be chomped through in shorter times unlike we've ever seen.

Granted, this is all theoretical.

Petr 2y ago

If it can then it will break bitcoin as anyone with that option could pick up Satoshis stack or any other.

Bohemia 2y ago

Yes, Bitcoin will need to adapt if this becomes a reality.

jimbocoin 🃏 2y ago

Bitcoin can adopt quantum-resistant signatures if needed via soft-fork.

The controversial question is whether to make old, vulnerable coin unspendable, or let it fall into the hands of quantum pirates.

Bohemia 2y ago

Quantum pirates 🤯 wild to even consider. Thanks for sharing.

jimbocoin 🃏 2y ago

Yeah, the old, unmoved coins attributed to Satoshi represent an enormous bounty for quantum researchers to plunder, hence “quantum pirates”. 😅

Bohemia 2y ago

Also thanks for pointing out signatures, I think I was conflating terms. Bitcoin uses encryption based on elliptical curves in its public/private key pair for digital signatures to sign transactions. It also uses a hash function sha-256 but I don't think hash is vulnerable to quantum.

jimbocoin 🃏 2y ago

Yeah, I’m not sure to what degree quantum could be used to mine. But if so, the difficulty readjustment should account for it.

In the unlikely event that SHA256 was totally solved (trivial to find a nonce that yields all zeros), the network could soft-fork in additional constraints. It would be ugly, but Bitcoin would survive.

FloridaBitcoin 2y ago

Makes sense to me 🧡⚡️🌹 this dude was already asking about it quantum attacks before he knew what the halving was….. he got his answers but I still don’t he understands 256 encryption in general or the purpose / function of quantum

Computers nor the fact that bitcoin is and can be programmed to prevent bad actors using new tech if need be. He went straight into the veteran holdr’ who’s bored and half drunk just talking hypothetical shit. But it really

Got him

Hung up on EVeRYThInG

jimbocoin 🃏 2y ago

Quantum is an example of a slow-moving disaster risk. It’s not going to pop out of nowhere. Incremental progress will be observable long before it’s a critical issue.

Bitcoin can fork in additional signature schemes and/or additional proof-of-work constraints. Even if a hard fork is required for something, Bitcoin still wins.

Consider a hypothetical death-knell bug that requires a hard fork to fix. One or more competing forks will emerge. One of those will achieve economic consensus (has all the value). We’ll call that chain “Bitcoin” and keep moving. Anyone who argues “that’s not real Bitcoin” is free to remain on the dead chain.

I don’t think such a situation like this is likely to come to pass. But if it did, everything would be OK, eventually.

Petr 2y ago

It would be good to adopt it before quantum computing can break existing ones. Even with that it won't be cheap in the beginning but still. Any ideas when is it coming?

FloridaBitcoin 2y ago

Not really. Especially if you’re not being targeted. Multisig

, extra odd words and or PIN numbers that lock after multiple attempts to enter the physical device also help a lot.