3 ms·

Bitcoin? You mean entire https web. Financial+banking sectors would collapse? Or had to build private trusted networks? I dont even know what could be done.

xvector 5y ago
Everything else - financial sector, web, etc - would move to quantum resistant PKI algorithms. It will take time and there will be issues, but that's mostly because management is dumb and incompetent and will postpone quantum resistant PKI until it's causing a lot of financial loss. The blockchain is in particular trouble because it's decentralized. Every wallet holder would have to re-sign their transactions with quantum resistant key pairs. But this is unlikely to happen to a good number of wallets (eg Satoshi's wallet), meaning a bad actor will crack the wallets that haven't done this one by one. They will then accumulate a truly ridiculous sum of Bitcoin and devalue it for everyone else. In fact, if someone did develop a quantum computer, they'd probably not announce it - letting it passively crack wallets, slowly accumulating vast sums of wealth, and also decrypting communications at the behest of intelligence agencies. It will likely be years after the development of such a computer that we will actually know it existed.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  > The blockchain is in particular trouble because it's decentralized. Every wallet holder would have to re-sign their transactions with quantum resistant key pairs. But this is unlikely to happen to a good number of wallets (eg Satoshi's wallet), meaning a bad actor will crack the wallets that haven't done this one by one. They will then accumulate a truly ridiculous sum of Bitcoin and devalue it for everyone else. There will be some deadline after which old wallets just will not work (essentially destroyed). So Satoshi's wallet finally will vanish.

3 ms·

Bitcoin? You mean entire https web. Financial+banking sectors would collapse? Or had to build private trusted networks? I dont even know what could be done.

by me_me_me 5y ago

xvector 5y ago
Everything else - financial sector, web, etc - would move to quantum resistant PKI algorithms. It will take time and there will be issues, but that's mostly because management is dumb and incompetent and will postpone quantum resistant PKI until it's causing a lot of financial loss. The blockchain is in particular trouble because it's decentralized. Every wallet holder would have to re-sign their transactions with quantum resistant key pairs. But this is unlikely to happen to a good number of wallets (eg Satoshi's wallet), meaning a bad actor will crack the wallets that haven't done this one by one. They will then accumulate a truly ridiculous sum of Bitcoin and devalue it for everyone else. In fact, if someone did develop a quantum computer, they'd probably not announce it - letting it passively crack wallets, slowly accumulating vast sums of wealth, and also decrypting communications at the behest of intelligence agencies. It will likely be years after the development of such a computer that we will actually know it existed.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  > The blockchain is in particular trouble because it's decentralized. Every wallet holder would have to re-sign their transactions with quantum resistant key pairs. But this is unlikely to happen to a good number of wallets (eg Satoshi's wallet), meaning a bad actor will crack the wallets that haven't done this one by one. They will then accumulate a truly ridiculous sum of Bitcoin and devalue it for everyone else. There will be some deadline after which old wallets just will not work (essentially destroyed). So Satoshi's wallet finally will vanish.