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I for one am grateful for the work of those who seek ways to make Bitcoin quantum-secure.

I remember back in my freshman year of college, which would've been nearly twenty years ago now, hearing about quantum computers and thinking we might have them in a decade.

When I first bought bitcoin, it was with the notion in mind that maybe one day quantum computers at scale would exist, that one day the Bitcoin network might have to upgrade for it, as it has updated in the past for other things. Bitcoin is resilient against many risks, but I've generally thought that to be one worth watching.

I think some of the recent concerns about quantum are overdone. Bitcoin goes through seasons, and this is clearly quantum season. But it is true that some institutions and potential large buyers are worrying about bitcoin's quantum resistance, and thus its price can be impacted even if the software is not. This can pass, in time. And those who develop potential mitigation paths, that help figure out what the most efficient and resilient upgrades would be if they are needed, are doing good work on that front.

Much like how some people are understandably spooked by just the risk of quantum (i.e. even if you believe there's a ~5% chance of it happening in some investable time horizon, that factors into your expected value analysis), others are understandably relieved by knowing that people are working on it and that mitigation paths do exist. And I'm glad they're doing that.

Tumbleweed 1w ago 💬 1

Seems like pulling precious metals from asteroids is on a similar timeline to having CRQC so it’s interesting to me that gold falling from the skies isn’t a concern for the gold market. At least bitcoin can innovate it’s way through this. Innovation will only serve to expand the gold supply.

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Discussion

JOE2o 1w ago 💬 1

Because you still have to mine them, ton by ton, you can't just tow one of these to earth, put a parachute on it and done.

Whereas if a lab right now today had a number of quantum machines running 2k logical qubits and 1b gates, Bitcoin would be game over in a week. As in game truly over. Yeah we're nowhere near, but we are at 100 logical qubits and advances in error-correction means there is a clear theoretical path to billions of gates. So it's not crazy pills.

Different threat types.

Tumbleweed 1w ago 💬 1

Fair, but it doesn’t require new leaps in technology, just capital investment. If gold continues to climb it will become economical

JOE2o 1w ago

I think so, but there will be a long period where mining in space is only marginally more economical than mining on earth. Basically there's no lights out moment, and that's price in.

For Bitcoin, as quantum develops markets will start pricing in a potential lights out moment. That is unless Bitcoin starts to work a little harder on quantum resistance. Which I very much wonder about, since much of the Bitcoin community is basically Amish in this regard.