Earlier this month, Google CEO Sundar Pichai
announced the creation of their new quantum computing chips called "
Willow", which caused a few ripples in the Bitcoin investment community, but also caused some skepticism among Bitcoin skeptics due to the announcement. A viral tweet sent out by Geiger Capital declaring "Bitcoin is dead" as a joke sparked a flood of mockery from skeptics who jumped at the opportunity to disparage the cryptocurrency.
As the news cycle changes every few years, it happens every time there is news regarding quantum computing (QC) fear associated with Bitcoin. This may have been sparked by Google's successive chip announcements.
Among the world's cryptocurrency communities, Google's newest quantum chip, Willow, has stirred up quite a bit of discussion. It has raised concerns over the possibility that Willow could breach Bitcoin's encryption, which is encrypted around the $2 trillion blockchain, which would allow any computer to perform a computation that would require a supercomputer billions of years to complete.
As a result of the announcement, Bitcoin's price dipped briefly but quickly recovered back to its previous level. Those were the feelings for some people on Monday, at the unveiling of Willow, a quantum supercomputer, which is capable of performing certain computational tasks in just five minutes, which would otherwise take a classical supercomputer an astronomical amount of time -- specifically, 10 septillion years if it were classical.
Even though there is an acknowledgement that quantum computing poses several theoretical risks, panic is still relatively low. The developers of Ethereum were among those who suggested that blockchains can be updated to resist quantum attacks, just as Bitcoin was upgraded in 2021 through the Taproot upgrade, which prepared the network for quantum attacks.
There seems to be no immediate threat from this direction at the moment.
Despite Willow's impressive achievements, there are no immediate commercial applications to be had from the company's technology.
According to experts in the crypto industry, there is still time for the industry to adapt in anticipation of quantum computing's threat.
A quantum computer also relies on entanglement to detect qubit states, where one qubit's state is directly correlated with another qubit's state. Their system is based on the use of quantum algorithms, such as Shor's and Grover's, that are already well-established and were designed to solve mathematical problems that would take classical computers billions of years to solve.
Despite this, there's a catch: most machines are error-prone and require extreme conditions such as nearly absolute zero temperatures to operate, and they're far from the scale needed to handle the size of cryptographic systems like public key cryptography or bitcoin that exist in real life.
As quantum computing is capable of solving problems at unprecedented speeds, it has long been considered that quantum computing can be a powerful tool for solving cryptographic problems, and this is true for both classical and elliptic curve-based cryptography.
A Bitcoin transaction relies on two cryptographic pillars: the ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) algorithm applies to securing the private keys and the
SHA-256 algorithm for hashing the transaction. There are two types of computers, both of which are considered robust against conventional computers at present. However, the advent of powerful and error-correcting quantum computers will probably upend that assumption by making it trivial to solve classical cryptographic puzzles, thus making them obsolete.
The recent announcement of Willow is being widely seen as a landmark achievement throughout the world of quantum computing.
Despite this, experts still believe that Bitcoin will remain safe for the foreseeable future, according to a Coinpedia report. Even though researchers are hailing Willow as a breakthrough in the world of quantum computing, there is consensus among experts that Bitcoin remains safe, according to a report published in Coinpedia. As Willow works faster than classical computers at certain tasks, it is still nowhere near as powerful as the computers that crack Bitcoin's encryption.
There is a theoretical possibility that quantum computers can be used to reduce Grover’s Algorithm to two times 128, thus making the problem, from a principle viewpoint, more manageable.
The problem, however, is that this still requires computation resources of a scale that humanity is undoubtedly far from possessing. In terms of quantum mechanics, as an example, the University of Sussex estimates that, depending on the speed of the operation, to break SHA-256 within a practical timeframe, 13 million to 317 million qubits will be required. It is interesting to note that there are only 105 qubits on Google's Willow chip, in comparison.
The quantum computer represents a fascinating frontier in technology, but so far it is far from posing a credible threat to Bitcoin's cryptography despite its growing popularity. The use of QC is going to increase, and Bitcoin will become more vulnerable. However, bitcoin may only be vulnerable after other cryptographic systems with weaker encryption have been attacked first, such as systems used by banks and the military. Although the progress of quality control is uncertain, it is assumed that the worry is still decades away based on improvements made in the last five years.
While waiting for these solutions to be established, Bitcoin already has many of them in place.
Since it is decentralized, the protocol can be updated whenever necessary to address these vulnerabilities. In recent years, several quantum-resistant algorithms, including Lamport signatures, have been examined, and new address types have been added through soft forks.
In the wake of the Willow chip announcement, there has been much speculation about possible defects within bitcoin that are more a matter of confirmation bias among skeptics than even Bitcoin itself.
Bitcoin is not going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It is important to note that Bitcoin has a robust cryptographic foundation and a clear path to quantum resistance if necessary, making it more resilient than other technologies that might be susceptible to the threat of quantum computing in the future.
Despite Google's announcement, most people still believe that quantum computing will not directly threaten Bitcoin's hash rate or Satoshi's coins soon, even after the announcement was made.
Additionally, Google plans to explore potential real-world applications for Willow, which suggests that Willow is already making impressive strides but also that its application scope is quite narrow by comparison.
Although it’s not yet fully operational, this development serves as a crucial reminder for blockchain developers. The growing potential of quantum computing underscores the need to prepare digital assets for the challenges it may bring.
To safeguard against future threats, Bitcoin may eventually require a protocol upgrade, possibly involving a hard fork, to incorporate quantum-resistant cryptographic measures. This proactive approach will be essential for ensuring the longevity and security of digital currencies in the face of rapidly advancing technology.
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