Cryptocurrency mining with quantum computer
Bitcoin and blockchain technology generally has the potential to make an incredibly positive impact on the world — if it can survive the threat of quantum computing. Image via Pixabay. Bitcoin-mania may have passed but the blockchain revolution it kicked off is quietly humming away. Financial institutions, governments, and start-ups are all finding innovative ways of using blockchain to build fairer, more robust systems. However, some observers are now concerned that it could all be undone by another groundbreaking advance: quantum computers. Harnessing the power of quantum computing will help propel humanity into the next stage of its evolution.
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- What Google's 'Quantum Supremacy' Means for the Future of Cryptocurrency
- Quantum Computers and Cryptocurrencies
- Who Will Mine Cryptocurrency in the Future - Quantum Computers or the Human Body?
- Quantum Computers Pose Imminent Threat to Bitcoin Security
- Cryptocurrency and Quantum Computing
- Can Governments Shut Down Bitcoin With Quantum Computers?
- Can Quantum Computers Attack Bitcoin?
- Quantum computers and Bitcoin mining – Explained
- Could Google’s Quantum Computer Mine 3 Million Bitcoin in 2 Seconds?
What Google's 'Quantum Supremacy' Means for the Future of Cryptocurrency
It was end of when I found that people alien to the crypto world or physics started to show interest in quantum computing. Looks like the next big hype, with people making different kinds of fabulous expectations and large IT companies fighting a battle to lead the progress both in the scientific and the marketing arenas.
So, as we go down and fiddle around with the atoms down there, we are working with different laws, and we can expect to do different things. Many other people have put their brains and work on quantum computing. For a detailed list you can see a nice timeline in Wikipedia. But it was in when the world knew about a quantum computing application that would attract an unprecedented interest in the technology. Peter Shor found an algorithm that would allow a quantum computer to solve the discrete log and the factoring problem in polynomial time.
In other words, if a practical quantum computer existed, our current public key cryptography would be easily cracked. Take Alice and Bob. They used to send private messages to each other, but suddenly Eve appeared eavesdropping on any conversation around. Now, Bob wants to send a new message to Alice. How would he be able to securely transmit his message? With traditional, symmetric cryptography , Alice and Bob need to agree on a key that would allow them to encrypt and decrypt the message.
However, Bob will have a hard time trying to find a way to send Alice the key he used to encrypt his message without Eve learning the key as well. Enter public cryptography. It was initially designed to solve the need for agreement on a secret key. This was achieved by Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman in At a very high level, you can think of public key cryptography this way: While a symmetric cryptosystem has one key that allows for encryption and decryption, a public key cryptosystem is based on a pair of mathematically related keys:.
What one key encrypts can only be decrypted by the other, and vice versa. Public key cryptography also enables an incredibly useful application: Digital signatures. It works like this:. Real life protocols make use of different techniques to improve efficiency and security, but in summary they work like this example.
So far, practical implementations of public key cryptography are based on a couple of known hard problems: Discrete logarithms and factorization. These problems get exponentially harder as the size of the numbers involved increase. Logarithm is the operation that gives as result the exponent that needs to be applied to a certain number, called base, to get some number.
In this example 10 is called the base, is called the anti-logarithm and 2 is called the logarithm. There are different number fields to define the discrete logarithm operation. Calculating a discrete logarithm in certain number fields becomes exponentially harder as the anti-logarithm grows. Factoring means obtaining the prime factors that form any number.
All numbers can be obtained by multiplying one or several prime numbers. Figure 1 graphs the time required on a sample test to factor a number built by multiplying two random prime numbers. You can easily see that as the number to be factored is increased, the time required to factor it gets larger in an accelerated way. The two series show the effort using two different factoring algorithms. We use logarithmic scales or simply log scales to represent exponential graphs in a way that allows us to perceive details all along the data set, like in Figure 2 , which shows the same data in a maybe less visually impacting format but allowing us to do some estimations.
Note how the vertical axis differs from a normal graph. In a normal graph we would have a proportional growth of values like in Figure 1 0, , , , … , where every seconds are represented with the same vertical space. In Figure 2 , on the contrary, the values increment according to the increment of an exponent 10 -2 , 10 -1 , 10 0 , 10 1 , 10 2 , 10 3 , … and so a values in the milliseconds range are represented using the same space as values in the thousands of seconds or millions of seconds range.
We can roughly guess how hard it is to factor a large number by using a log scale and some data :. The combined power of the most powerful supercomputers in the world would need in the order of 10, years to factor a bit RSA modulus. So, would need to launch your factoring program during the end of the Ice Age to get the result today.
The current default key size used by OpenSSH is bits, which would require, roughly the age of the universe to be factored by the same cluster of supercomputers. Imagine yourself with that cluster besides the big bang. A bit RSA modulus would need roughly one million times the age of the universe to be factored by the same cluster. This is how hard it is currently to break public key cryptography, when properly used.
Alternative ways to attack public key cryptography exist and are based mainly on poor implementations. But this is out of the scope of this article. The core feature of quantum computers is that they are based on quantum bits, qubits. In classical computing we operate with bits and they have anytime a single value, either 0 or 1. On the contrary qubits are special in that they make use of certain quantum phenomena like superposition and entanglement.
Quantum particles in superposition behave as if they are in different states simultaneously and only get a final, single state when observed or measured. Only when we measure it, the qubit collapses to a single state. Thanks to entanglement, two quantum particles will always have a correlation between their states. Take, for instance, two entangled photons. But once we measure one of the photons, we know that the other will have collapsed to the opposite spin.
Hence the previous world generates two branches, one world where the observer sees a living cat and another world where the observer sees a dead cat. I want spoil it. Just take a look at it and laugh. One way to think about quantum computers is that leveraging on superposition and entanglement they can manipulate several states at once. Consider a classical computer operating with bits.
It can only be in a single state at any point in time and its n bits will have a single value. On the contrary, a quantum computer with n qubits will be in states simultaneously and will be able to operate on all those states AT ONCE. This is sometimes compared to parallel computing. This is not very accurate and there are some arguments against this comparison. Anyway, the basic idea is that a quantum computer can provide an exponential speedup when attacking some complex problems.
The goal of a quantum algorithm is to carry operations in quantum states in such a way that the measurement of the qubits will likely provide us with an answer to our problem. Refer to Annex II for a few further details on the basics of quantum computing.
Peter Shor found a way to calculate discrete logarithms and factor integers in a way that does not grow exponentially with the size of the variable. This means, for instance, that breaking a bit RSA key might take minutes, hours or days instead of several times the age of the universe. There are no accurate predictions on when a quantum computer large enough to break current public key cryptosystems will exist, but the closest expectations estimate the decade for that event.
You can find more information on postquantum cryptography and the standardization efforts in the following links:. Meanwhile you should take care about how long your encrypted data and signatures are expected to be secure. This will greatly depend on the use case. Annex I: Some math details of public key cryptography. Annex II: Some further details on quantum computing.
Richard Feynman. Peter Shor. Figure 3: Rough estimation of the time required to factor large RSA moduli. To view the video it is necessary to activate targeted cookies. You can do it in the following link Cookie Settings. A bit of history Quantum Computing Transformation. Artificial Intelligence. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants. Will you Know who's Talking? Find us. Contact Us. Follow Us.
Quantum Computers and Cryptocurrencies
Researchers at the University of Sussex have estimated the required time for a quantum computer to break the bitcoin algorithm. They discuss how that cannot happen for owners in the blockchain and the future as well. Suspected marijuana plant raid turns into crypto mining farm discovery. There are six hash values under the SHA-2 process, with SHA being one of the more prominent due to its use in bitcoin currency.
Who Will Mine Cryptocurrency in the Future - Quantum Computers or the Human Body?
Bitcoin mining has already become an expensive and complicated affair. As the difficulty rates have adjusted, the machines required in order to mine the new Bitcoin have had to advanced beyond mere GPUs on home PCs to ASICs developed by large conglomerates. This all begs a really important question, what could advances in computing power do to the Bitcoin mining industry? More particularly, how could the advent of Quantum computers change the landscape? In a post by the author Riz Virk, he tries to answer this question in the most comprehensive way possible. He also approaches it in light hearted jest by pretending that he had already purchased a Quantum computer. Riz took us through his attempts to mine Bitcoin with his new found toy.
Quantum Computers Pose Imminent Threat to Bitcoin Security
Quantum computing is typically feared due to its potential to render bitcoin obsolete by cracking its cryptography. However, one analyst alleges that there may be a much simpler way to do it: by beating bitcoin at its own game. Almost instantly following this news, a fervor of panic erupted within the crypto community. Talks of obsoletion were on the table, and conversations as to how to combat this new quantum threat were discussed at length. Though, for the most part, anxieties subdued, and the hyperbole was seen for what it was, that is until the aforementioned Medium post was published.
Cryptocurrency and Quantum Computing
Skip to search form Skip to main content Skip to account menu You are currently offline. Some features of the site may not work correctly. Byrnes Published 12 November Physics, Computer Science, Mathematics ArXiv Bitcoin is a digital currency and payment system based on classical cryptographic technologies which works without a central administrator such as in traditional currencies. It has long been questioned what the impact of quantum computing would be on Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general. Here, we analyse three primary directions that quantum computers might have an impact in: mining, security, and forks. We find that in the near-term the impact of quantum computers appear to be rather small… Expand.
Can Governments Shut Down Bitcoin With Quantum Computers?
It is very likely that both blockchain and quantum technologies would come close to the top of your list. Blockchains promise the secure exchange of digital assets such as money, contracts, tokens… using peer-to-peer networks, with no need for trusted intermediaries. They rely on cryptography to generate, protect and exchange these assets. Many believe that this will be a revolution in the way we conduct business over the Internet and much more. Quantum technologies offer a change of paradigm in the way we process information. Quantum computers will provide a tremendous increase in computing power.
Can Quantum Computers Attack Bitcoin?
Quantum computing is a form of computing that solves computing problems in a three dimensional manner which is why it is used to make and crack cryptographic codes. Bitcoin relies on an encryption technology known as the Elliptic Curve Cryptography to secure its mining operations but a report by two tech companies has raised some issues, these are that Bitcoin has been attacked by cyber rogues using quantum computers to exploit the vulnerabilities of its mining operations, pointing to the suspicion that more powerful computers may be able to disrupt the network of the blockchain on which Bitcoin was built. Bitcoin in its early days, used a mining operation known as the P2PK to secure its mining operation.
Quantum computers and Bitcoin mining – Explained
RELATED VIDEO: How can Quantum Computing help Bitcoin Mining?IEEE websites place cookies on your device to give you the best user experience. By using our websites, you agree to the placement of these cookies. To learn more, read our Privacy Policy. A new quantum cryptography-based Bitcoin standard has been proposed that could harden the popular cryptocurrency against the advent of full-fledged quantum computers.
Could Google’s Quantum Computer Mine 3 Million Bitcoin in 2 Seconds?
From dramatic price swings to regulatory uncertainties, headlines concerning cryptocurrency make it easy to forget that, despite the technological milestones that blockchains and cryptocurrencies have achieved, fundamental technical loopholes remain open to exploitation by future technologies, such as quantum computers. Even though quantum computers will not wipe out blockchains and cryptocurrencies entirely, experts agree that quantum computing will bring significant security risks to cryptocurrencies as a whole. Google reported that Sycamore had the capacity to compute a mathematical equation in seconds that would otherwise take a supercomputer 10, years to compute. Experts agree that this technology is the start of an arms race to develop powerful quantum computers and that quantum supremacy may arrive sooner than originally expected, prompting some further questions: Will quantum computers eventually crack the code of cryptographic algorithms, such as SHA and elliptic-curve cryptography? If so, what is the future of cryptocurrencies? Quantum supremacy is the end goal of all developments in the quantum computing space.
Two cutting-edge technologies that promise to revolutionize entire fields may be on a collision course. Cryptocurrencies hold the potential to change finance, eliminating middlemen and bringing accounts to millions of unbanked people around the world. Quantum computers could upend the way pharmaceuticals and materials are designed by bringing their extraordinary power to the process. Here's the problem: The blockchain accounting technology that powers cryptocurrencies could be vulnerable to sophisticated attacks and forged transactions if quantum computing matures faster than efforts to future-proof digital money.
It is a pity, that now I can not express - there is no free time. I will return - I will necessarily express the opinion.