Your response clearly shows a lack of Qubit-related knowledge. Quantum computers are not magical beings. They consist of qubits which are different from classical bits. However, you CAN estimate how much bits in a bitcoin pvt key would be cracked by counting how many qubits you have .. you need 1 million Qubits to crack a full sha256 private key. So again, neither time nor resources are enough to make one such computer with that gigantic amount of qubits. Hence, from 3k qubits to 1mil qubits, there will be a huge time difference to close the gap between those two numbers. You basically can start worrying at 500k qubits. As for resources, checkout how much a small portable quantum computer costs and you might get a feel of how much resources you need to even start creating a quantum device with such amount of qubits.
Keep your patronizing tone for yourself.
Reserach is currently underway on a way to scale quantum computers through connecting them. So everything points rather into direction of connecting many smaller quantum machines into one than building giant quantum computer.
I can only agree that we don't know when it will occur - but im sure at some point IT WILL OCCUR.
BTW I never said such machines will be available for average person soon. I meant more about government agencies or military where cost isn't such a big problem (the same way you can't buy and any private corporation dosen't have nuclear weapon despite it clearly exists).
I can also agree that we are still far away from a machine that could crack private keys from public keys getting them from unconfirmed txs (there is a small time limit to make it) - but there is a ton of loaded addresses with available public key which you can try to crack for as long as you need (exactly the same way you crack bitcoin puzzles now).
No patronizing intended at all. Just stating a fact. Some research about qubits will reveal how extremely unlikely for it to act as a threat to current strong hashing algorithms (except for the media, which is using naiive headlines to gain attention through generating doubt). And i know for sure that you're not talking about individuals, because an individual cannot even afford a portable quantum computer let alone a 1mil qubit one. And I'm not seeing the advantage of concatenating several quantums into one coz if you can't create more noisy or stable qubits, then you're just creating a chain of server-like computers. Also don't let those revealed pub keys deceive you into thinking it's getting any easier to crack. Knowing a pub key of puzzle 120 is nothing like knowing a pub key of a well randomized pvt key for an address. Which is the case with all those rich addresses you see now. Never expect to find an address with 2 million bucks worth of bitcoin that uses a public key for a private key of more than 3 leading zeros. Good luck trying to calculate that using a pub key on a quantum device or any device for that matter. Sure, quantum is insanely faster than classic PCs, but most people don't know the fact that numbers will still beat the difference in performance between the two. If govs know that all it takes to break sha256 is spending a few billions, then this would have happened already. Lucky for Satoshi and us, it should cost way WAY more than that.
Now let's talk numbers to put things in perspective:
- a typical quantum device is 158 million times faster than the strongest computer on earth
- say you have a supercomputer that goes through 1000 TRILLION private keys per sec.
- you would need 3671743063080802746815416825491118336290905145409708398 years to crack every bitcoin address.
- with quantum device you would need less than that... Only 23238880146081030043135549528424799596777880667 years lol.
- say you did something to quantum tech and moved it up so fast .. like insanely fast that it gave you a critical advantage and shortened this period down and you're 1000 TRILLION times faster, then, and only then, you'll be able to do the cracking job in just under 23238880146081030043135549528425 years
- Say that when using a pub key calc. Instead of private key cracking, you are now saving time and you're 1 BILLION TRILLION times faster, awesome! Now you can easily calculate the keys in only 23 Million years.
Fun fact: If one day you find out that any bitcoin burn addresses got emptied, you can be 100% sure someone found a way to break sha256 😃 Because you know, obviously no one is supposed to know the private key for a burn address.. even Satoshi.