{"id":28906,"date":"2024-12-16T17:28:47","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T17:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=28906"},"modified":"2024-12-16T17:28:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T17:28:47","slug":"can-quantum-computing-hack-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=28906","title":{"rendered":"Can quantum computing hack bitcoin?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you hear about Google\u2019s <\/strong>(GOOG) big breakthrough in quantum computing<\/a>?<\/p>\n

The tech giant unveiled its \u201cWillow\u201d quantum computing chip<\/strong> last week, a groundbreaking achievement.<\/p>\n

Google claims Willow can solve certain computational tasks in just five minutes, which would take classical supercomputers 10 septillion years.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s longer than the universe has been around. 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, to be\u00a0exact!<\/p>\n

With this kind of speed, everyone now wants to know\u2026 could quantum computing hack bitcoin\u00a0(BTC)<\/strong>?<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s important to point out, first of all, that this was a benchmark test specifically chosen for quantum computers. So for everything \u201cpractical,\u201d normal computers are still\u00a0better.<\/p>\n

Willow is incredibly powerful in a very specific way. It solves highly specialized math problems much faster than traditional computers. But if you were to take this and try to run an artificial intelligence (AI) system on it, the traditional computer would still be\u00a0better.<\/p>\n

Regarding crypto specifically, Willow is nowhere near powerful enough to crack bitcoin seed phrases. It only has 105 qubits, which is great for quantum experiments but far from what\u2019s needed to break bitcoin\u2019s encryption. Experts estimate you\u2019d need about 1 million high-quality qubits to make a dent in bitcoin\u2019s security.<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than that, I recently met a guy in San Francisco who told me he\u2019s backing a startup that\u2019s working on quantum cryptography. As quantum computers get more powerful, bitcoin won\u2019t just \u201cstand still\u201d\u2026 it\u2019ll just adopt whatever the new standard\u00a0is.<\/p>\n

One more\u00a0thing\u2026<\/p>\n

People have asked, \u201cIs this the new ChatGPT\u00a0moment?\u201d<\/h3>\n

No. This is like back in the 1940s when we invented the first-ever computer. Quantum computers are not just a faster computer; they\u2019re a new type of computer that do completely different things.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where we are. And I would just also remind people that the first AI paper was published in 1943, so that was 80 years before we got\u00a0ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

Quantum computing\u2019s going to be big, but it\u2019s going to take a long\u00a0time.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another reason why you shouldn\u2019t be\u00a0worried.<\/h3>\n

There are <\/em>ways to encrypt data that would theoretically be \u201cunhackable,\u201d even by a true quantum computer. And the way you do that is to take advantage of the same area of physics\u200a\u2014\u200aquantum mechanics\u200a\u2014\u200athat quantum computers use.<\/p>\n

So (bear with me here), where quantum computers leverage superposition and entanglement to do countless calculations at once\u2026 you can build encryption that takes advantage of a fundamental law of quantum mechanics. If you try to observe or measure a particle or quantum system, you change its\u00a0state.<\/p>\n

So if you try to eavesdrop on a transmission like this, you basically corrupt it, and you can\u2019t read\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

This is already being done in the real world. It\u2019s called quantum key distribution (QKD). Toshiba, for example, has a QKD system that uses single particles of light called photons to make encryption keys to secure data that\u2019s being sent from a facility in London to a facility 30 miles\u00a0away.<\/p>\n

The point here is that there are a lot of smart people thinking about these issues and coming up with solutions\u200a\u2014\u200asolutions that could be used for crypto and blockchains. So even a powerful quantum computer wouldn\u2019t spell the end of crypto or blockchain technology.<\/strong><\/p>\n

From a trader\u2019s perspective, Google\u2019s breakthrough doesn\u2019t look like a threat to\u00a0bitcoin.<\/h3>\n

I asked my colleague Justin Spittler to tell me what his view on this topic\u00a0is.<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know Justin yet, he\u2019s RiskHedge\u2019s <\/em>Chief Trader<\/a>. He also just started his Medium account, so click here and give him a\u00a0follow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what he has to\u00a0say:<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a trader\u2019s perspective, if Google\u2019s breakthrough was a significant threat to bitcoin right now, bitcoin wouldn\u2019t be above $100K\u00a0again.And it wouldn\u2019t be setting up to rip to $115K\/$120K, which I think happens before the end of the\u00a0year.And you wouldn\u2019t see all these altcoins breaking out left and\u00a0right.Bitcoin would be down significantly, maybe around 50%, if quantum computing was truly an immediate threat to bitcoin. In other words, the market would be taking it way<\/em> more seriously.From a trader\u2019s point of view and from the market\u2019s perspective, it\u2019s not a serious immediate-term threat. Because if it were, bitcoin would be getting slaughtered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bottom line: What Google did is amazing. It\u2019s a major step forward for quantum computing. But it doesn\u2019t impact <\/strong>the bullish case for crypto<\/strong><\/a> one\u00a0bit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more insights, <\/strong>subscribe to my investing letter The\u00a0Jolt\u26a1<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I publish fresh research on stocks and crypto every Monday and\u00a0Friday.<\/p>\n

Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also, I run a crypto advisory called Venture<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>You can learn more about it by clicking\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephen McBride, Chief Analyst at <\/em>RiskHedge<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Can quantum computing hack bitcoin?<\/a> was originally published in Coinmonks<\/a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did you hear about Google\u2019s (GOOG) big breakthrough in quantum computing? The tech giant unveiled its \u201cWillow\u201d quantum computing chip last week, a groundbreaking achievement. Google claims Willow can solve certain computational tasks in just five minutes, which would take classical supercomputers 10 septillion years. That\u2019s longer than the universe has been around. 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}