Quantum Computers: A Threat to Bitcoin
Bitcoin as we know grew tremendously over a few years starting from a value $0.003 in April, 2010 to a sky-soaring $4,440 today. It now stands as the most popular cryptocurrency. The complicacy of the mining techniques and hence its rarity has turned into a kind of digital gold. People don’t want control of a third party like the government on their hard earned property. This is where cryptocurrencies like bitcoin find their place because of their decentralized nature. People can make their transactions in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin without the government’s intervention and hence cryptocurrencies are untraceable.
There is something that is threatening the existence of these currencies, Quantum Computers. Quantum Computers the to be next generation computers are claimed to be superpowerful. Even million times more powerful than the fastest supercomputer. The Superposition State of a Quantum System and Quantum Entanglement makes these computers the Computing Giant. They are a threat to the RSA algorithm[1] which is prevalent in every cryptosystem nowadays e.g. the banking, defense and almost all government domains. The foundation of RSA algorithm lies in the complicacy of prime factorization of very large numbers which are the private keys of the users. A classical computer takes unimaginably long time to factorize a number. But according to Shor’s Algorithm[2], a quantum computer can factorize a very large number in a minute or two thus destroying the foundation of RSA algorithm and ultimately that of bitcoin. As the techno giants like NASA, Google, IBM and many more are investing regressively to develop the Quantum Computer, it is believed that they may be on a verge of developing one successfully in the near future. The Canadian company
D: Wave Systems already claims to have built one successfully. Below is the video on "Google and NASA's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab" showcasing the Quantum Computer built by D: Wave System.
However, scientists questions the legitimacy of the quantumness of this so called quantum computer built by D: Wave System. No matter what it is really a threat to bitcoin because using a quantum computer one will know the private key of the bitcoin holders and can access the bitcoins. Scientists are already in work for addressing this issue. One way is to change the cryptosystem used in bitcoin to a Quantum Proof cryptosystem. However they should be ahead of Quantum Computer off course.
References:
[1] RSA Algorithm
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9blllMYFg)
[2] Shor’s Algorithm (https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9508027)
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STOPIt is readily accepted that DWave isnt a true quantum computer .
The day someone fully achieves stable quantum is the day all the world's encryption is instantly obsolete.
Does it have any harm on steemit?
I wonder
I would think so since the Steemit platform is set up like everything else...decentralized and open....the wallets addys can be found and we all have a password (key) to log on. I would imagine quantum would hack that in about 15 seconds.
OMG...steemit will collapse then.
Unless parameters are put in place by those ultra smart programmers who are working on a way to stop it. Fortunately, it is a situation that people are aware of and the core teams on all these currencies (well all things that have encryption) are attacking.
Put enough genius people together on a problem and I believe they will solve it. There is great motivation to achieve this end.
Great post. Heard of this already. Think it could be a problem, but I am sure they are working on the solution already. followed and upvoted. Cheers. Feel free to follow back.
Sure...followed.Will upvote too
Let me go through your posts
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Informative post! The techy peoples will take care of this. They won't let steemit go down; nor will quantum computer be so easily developed...
Steemit level up!!!
But it is alarming to hear ... upvote follow resteem! I like this post!
Nice post. Really informative.