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Ask HN: What will happen with BitCoin eventually
Is it the right assumption that when quantum computing becomes a reality, it will render BitCoin (as well as all other cryptocurrencies) obsolete overnight. Can/Should anything be done today to prevent this from happening?
- solomatov 9y agoI think, bitcoin will be banned by most of governments earlier than quantum computing will become widespread to break bitcoin.
- dmitryame 9y agoHow can you ban something that can not be banned by design?
- solomatov 9y agoPowerful countries can easily perform 50% attack and decide which transactions get confirmed and which not. Effectively, this makes it possible to completely stop transactions on the network.
- dmitryame 9y agoIn theory, such an attack is possible, in practice -- very unlikely at this point given the number of miners out there. Here is what it was in 2015: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-19/bitcoins-computing-network-more-powerful-525-googles-and-more-10000-banks http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-19/bitcoins-computing-... Today it's even higher than ever: https://news.bitcoin.com/why-bitcoin-is-close-to-a-record-breaking-3-exahashes-processing-power/ https://news.bitcoin.com/why-bitcoin-is-close-to-a-record-br...
- solomatov 9y agoYou can read more about vulnerabilities here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- toexitthedonut 9y agoDon't think about what will happen to Bitcoin in that situation, because its hashing algorithm is nothing particularly unique. Think of what will happen to SHA-1, -2, etc. The NSA is likely already thinking well ahead about this possibility.