In case anyone is in doubt: it's possible quantum computing could break common cryptographic cyphers in the future, but it's still entirely hypothetical.
Anyone telling you there's an immanent threat to Bitcoin because of this theoretical vaporware is either uninformed or deliberately spreading FUD.
Was wondering about this. Heard Google hit quantum supremacy, but I have no idea what that means and was wondering if that could affect the price of bitcoin
Current quantum computing is very primitive and highly experimental.
It is a good thing to use modern cryptographic curves that are objectively harder to break (e.g. Curve25519 over RSA) but this idea quantum computers could destroy Bitcoin any minute is total bullshit.
And they also likely have never heard of or are failing to mention the phrase “difficulty adjustment”
To be fair, in this hypothetical, if SHA-256 had indeed been broken, the difficulty wouldn't matter because the underlying cryptography keeping Bitcoin secure would itself be vulnerable.
However this won't happen out of nowhere from quantum computers. When a hash function is close to breaking there will be research leading up to the final crack.
There will be plenty of time to transition to a more secure alternative. Satoshi himself discussed this.
I have faith in bitcoin devs to address this threat should it ever materialize. And as time goes by with hyperbitcoinization unfolding, the number of bitcoin devs will only increase and the amount of support to protect bitcoin will only increases. The greater the adoption the greater number of people with incentives to protect bitcoin.
Sha256 hashing is not vulnerable to quantum computing. Not even theoretically.
Also there is no theoretical way to reverse hashing using quantum computing which is used quite a lot in bitcoin security anyway.
Don't reuse addresses and you're pretty much fine.
Satoshi's word on this issue.
P.S. A gradual weakening of a hash function is the much more likely scenario, not breaking all at once. The warning signs typically come years in advance. Plenty of time for Bitcoin Core to make a clean transition.
Interesting that the bitcoin founder and devs were discussing this back in 2010.
Just thinking if quantum computing breaks #btc there will be a lot of other things broken as well, like basically all private secure communication and financial transactions etc.
To think I would ever be discussion the implications of Schrödinger’s wave equation sends shivers up my spine. That’s one college book I am glad I will never open again.
1000% if this did happen it would break absolutely fucking everything and tradfi would be a much bigger target
