Topic: Did Satoshi think that quantum computers will exist? - page 2. (Read 1915 times)

I think we'll be fine for the immediate future. If any real world cryptographic breaks happen, the rest of the internet will find out first, and then we can consider upgrading key sizes or algorithms.

For the most part, both symmetric and asymmetric encryption are relatively safe from brute force as long as you use larger than 128 bit keys or the equivalent. Hash functions work similarly.


Also, someone please define "quantum resistant" bitcoin addresses. I believe even the legacy addresses that are unspent with no other outgoing transactions are quantum resistant already.

I assume you are talking about Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet, Inc and Google LLC?  He's not a "technology" officer, he's a business officer.  That being said...


What exactly does he mean when he says it will "break encryption"?

MD5 hashing has been "broken" since 1996, and yet would probably still work just fine as a Bitcoin hashing algorithm.

Without details of what will be broken, and how it will be effected, it's just an arbitrary opinion about a very generic concept.

Why did he not move his early mined P2PK Bitcoins to quantum resistant P2PKH addresses?

he invented bitcoin a long time ago and quantum computing was only a concept that time so he didnt bother it  .

now i guess there are now few quantum computers invented and satoshi feels threatened because these kind of computers are powerful and can possibly crack and bypass all system  including the strong cryptography and blockhain  .  lets hope that im wrong and your right   . people should not build it to destroy other technology  because that will be a total disaster

He probably didn’t consider quantum computing and at the time, the length of the private key provides a lot of security.

We also should remember that quantum computing is only theoretical at this point and may not do what everyone is speculating.

Satoshi Nakamoto has been creating cryptocurrency as an alternative means of payment for existing payment systems. It is simply impossible to calculate in advance the development of other technologies and their possible impact on cryptocurrency.
There is a chance of hacking cryptocurrency wallets using quantum computers, but it’s hard to say how it will be in practice.

We don't know if and when what will happen?


First of all, these quantum computers will not be end-user products for a long time. They are also not designed & used as of now with malicious intent, so any breakthrough regarding cryptocurrencies such as quantum computing being able to "decrypt" blockchains will most likely only add more strength to it and turn quantum computing into a real world problem, which would turn into us all coming together to add, if possible, a quantum-resistant layer to the existing Bitcoin blockchain.

Second of all, quantum computing is a threat to a lot of things before Bitcoin. If quantum computing becomes available to anyone, it would open the possibilities of extreme cyber-attacks the world has never seen before. We aren't ready for quantum computing, the internet itself isn't at all. Before cryptocurrencies, we must protect everything else. The governments themselves are at risk, so is the internet as we know it.

Therefore, we must first develop ways to protect everything we know against quantum computers. They will be in our homes soon enough (although probably a decade or two, that still is very close), so we must basically re-invent security in order to apply it not against very powerful PCs and servers but against this breakthrough technology called Quantum Computing.

Trust me, there are computers more powerful even than quantum but nobody says a thing yet. In research and laboratories there is always something new, something better. That doesn't mean it's a published information. When they're ready, they will publish it. Research is decades ahead of end-user products.

Satoshi did know about it. Quantum was a thing before year 2000. Don't tell me the man who created Bitcoin does not know what quantum is. But we barely have solutions yet against it, why are some people expecting he should've created protection against it in BTC's blockchain? And there's not only this but also the fact that Bitcoin is now helped by tens/hundreds of thousands of developers. Maybe even millions, if we consider everyone involved in the total number of people working on cryptocurrency projects.

It's one mind vs the world. Even as a genius as he probably is, there's always going to be contradiction & improvement when you put a brain next to 8 billion of them.

Yes, not predictable. It could even happen tomorrow.

It's just not possible to predict what's gonna happen in 7-10 years, especially when the tech itself isn't even finalized

We are getting closer:

The boss of Google has warned that quantum computers will be able to break encryption within as little as five years, signalling the growing threat to privacy such technological advances.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/01/22/googles-sundar-pichai-quantum-computing-could-end-encryption/
"In a five to ten year time frame, quantum computing will break encryption as we know it today."

How the Crypto World Is Preparing for Quantum Computing, Explained
https://cointelegraph.com/explained/how-the-crypto-world-is-preparing-for-quantum-computing-explained

"While present-day quantum computers cannot break blockchains and their underlying cryptography, larger ones on the horizon are a threat, indeed, and need to be prepared for."

@ developers: When will we implement quantum computer resistant addresses?
@ satoshi: You filled the blockchain with your early mined coins and the quantum transformation will be very interesting. Who will get the most coins?

He probably did not, but we also don’t know if and when it will happen either.  And it is possible that quantum computing could be used to protect Bitcoin as well.

I think Bitcoin developers can be kinda ready for somebody trying to use a quantum computer in the future to mine bitcoins and they're going to provide some security from such calculations. And besides, a quantum computer's technology is extremely expensive and hard to introduce, so we wouldn't be seriously worried about that in the coming years. To be fair, I believe it will be a threat only in like 20 years or so.

It seems the first choice (a) is inevitable.  Once fork started, those addresses that did not follow instructions or left untouched will be vulnerable to being decoded by quantum computers.  Unless the developers got the first hand on those coins, there is no other option but that first one (a).

In general, many people do not think in a perspective longer than 5 years. But luckily there are notable exemptions which think forward and therefore we already have some teams of developers trying to address this future threat.

Nobody expects them to. Quantum computing is additional to general computing, what people probably mean is that your general computer will be also quantum capable, i think something like a quantum co-processor will appear at some point. At this point, you WILL see quantum crypto algorithms implemented, which solves the problem entirely.

So its the opposite. Once "everyone" has it, it is solved. The problem is the transition, when only a few can own one. Your worry is from today, until "quantum computers became commercially available like smartphones" when you can easily use quantum crypto algorithms.

This is also the reason the mitigations should not be delayed too long, but always keep in mind of that the actual solution is.

Will Quantum Volume Be The Next Moore’s Law? https://www.designnews.com/design-hardware-software/will-quantum-volume-be-next-moore-s-law/62963653562205
Doubling performance every year is now the benchmark for quantum computers as designers look to EDA vendors for new automation tools.
IBM’s Rasit Onur Topaloglu: "I am not going to project when we will reach 200 qubits, but we already have an 80 qubits architecture."

According to the chart: 2500 qubits reached by year 2025

We have to begin with the implementation of quantum resistant Bitcoin addresses soon.

We will have a quantum resistant upgrade. People will transfer their coins to quantum resistant addresses, but a lot of coins (million+) won't be moved to these secure addresses as they are "lost" coins and nobody can move them.
Which fork will you use post quantum?
a) the fork with all Bitcoins where quantum computer owners will get the "lost" coins and will be the new owners.
b) the fork where "lost" coins are burnt and can't have new owners.

There's a lot of time to update Bitcoin to an even stronger encryption.

I expect that by the time some company finally reaches 2,5k people in China will already be mining Bitcoin on quantum miners and the network security and encryption will double. We had vital updates to Bitcoin in the past and we can have them in the coming years.

In fact, when a military threat or military competition arises between countries, each country acts at its discretion in order to contrast one weapon with a completely different one.  The same applies to the computer, because if you are already talking about a quantum computer today, especially considering the beginning of its development several decades ago, today you need to work on ensuring security for cryptocurrency, since everyone should understand the capabilities of a quantum computer and how much  helpless may be Bitcoin in front of this machine. But as I understand it, most users worry about their earnings in the near future in order to earn more money using cryptocurrency volatility, and they are not interested in security in the future.