A True quantum computer will break any modern encryption even these so-called "quantum resistant" blah blah blah... Ill easily explain it in simple terms
How?
Example:
Lets say for the poops and laughs your string is (that is only letters and only capital letters):
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ (broken down into binary code):
01000001 01000010 01000011 01000100 01000101 01000110 01000111 01001000 01001001 01001010 01001011 01001100 01001101 01001110 01001111 01010000 01010001 01010010 01010011 01010100 01010101 01010110 01010111 01011000 01011001 01011010
A typical modern computer trying to brute force its way in would have to crack 26 characters exponetially 26 times (26^26) or 6.156 Decillion (A.k.A 6,156,119,580,207,157,310,796,674,288,400,203,776 times) and that is just with the 26 uppercase letters! This is because current computer bits are either 1's or 0's and it can only test one pathway at a time which could potentially take (26^26) tries to solve the password.
Seems impossible but not with quantum computers
Since at a quantum level the bits exist as both a 1 and a 0 the encryption basically grabs its ankles and takes it. The Quantum attempt looks at the encryption then makes the attempt and succeeds immediately.
This is where new cryptography needs to occur and when complete it will be truly quantum proof. You need a crypto-algo that changes when observed, accessed, or altered. Some call this Quantum Cryptography but an algo could be written right now that would be quantum proof. The problem is even Watson on a dedicated pipe to the internet would have trouble handling it. Think of 10000tx per second. Each one changing the blockchain... (I can smell the fried circuits now... ahhhhh)
So ya this is very layman explanation and I could get more detailed but it should sum up.
Ok so as somebody said above this will affect a lot of software including the blockchain for cryptos ? so what if they do not use blockchains like IOTA is doing. Im thinking that blockchains in the future will be useless and if that is so Bitcoin will be left behind unless they get rid of the blockchain
The answer is quantum cryptography using entanglement. A simple soft fork would allow implementation. This would be 100% unhackable, and couldn't be brute forced, because any measurement (including an attempted hack or interception) alters the state of the system. There are technical issues to overcome before we get to this stage, a big one being decoherence (signal degradation) due to interaction with the environment.
Quantum computing is not really here yet; the existing systems are very simple and primitive and only work in ideal conditions... but I'm sure that, like crypto, quantum computing is coming to the mainstream - and quantum cryptography comes as a part of that.
QC won't threaten the blockchain, it will give it more security.