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I don’t see why bitcoin wouldn’t update its software in such a case. The majority of minors just need to agree. But why wouldn’t they if the alternative is goin

I don’t see why bitcoin wouldn’t update its software in such a case. The majority of minors just need to agree. But why wouldn’t they if the alternative is going to zero?

jonathanlydall 1y ago
Sir Alexander Dane: MINERS, not MINORS.
- FergusArgyll 1y ago
  That actually confused me. I thought he he meant "the majority of the minority" while I was pretty sure it's just a simple majority
- jacquesm 1y ago
  "Ahhhh... now you tell me" (Formerly Prince Andrew, at some point).
andrewstuart2 1y ago
I'll tell you right now, no way my kids would agree until they're at least adults. They don't even know what asymmetric cryptography is.
- LPisGood 1y ago
  I’m confused, are your kids major Bitcoin miners?
  - andrewstuart2 1y ago
    Not major miners, but minor miners (if you count Minecraft).
  - jdiff 1y ago
    GGP used the term "minors," GP is running with the typo.
andrewla 1y ago
How could updating the software possibly make a difference here? If the encryption is cracked, then who is to say who owns which Bitcoin? As soon as I try to transfer any coin that I own, I expose my public key, your "Quantum Computer" cracks it, and you offer a competing transaction with a higher fee to send the Bitcoin to your slush fund. No amount of software fixes can update this. In theory once an attack becomes feasible on the horizon they could update to post-quantum encryption and offer the ability to transfer from old-style addresses to new-style addresses, but this would be a herculean effort for everyone involved and would require all holders (not miners) to actively update their wallets. Basically infeasible. Fortunately this will never actually happen. It's way more likely that ECDSA is broken by mundane means (better stochastic approaches most likely) than quantum computing being a factor.
- iwontberude 1y ago
  As you alluded to, network can have two parallel chains where wallets can be upgraded by users asynchronously before PQC is “needed” (a long way away still) which will leave some wallets vulnerable and others safe. It’s not that herculean as most wallets (not most BTC) are in exchanges. The whales will be sufficiently motivated to switch and everyone else it will happen in the background. A nice benefit is it solves the problem with Satoshi’s (of course not a real person or owner) wallet. Satoshi’s wallet becomes the defacto quantum advantage prize. That’s a lot of scratch for a research lab.
  - jwpapi 1y ago
    Not even needed you can just copy network state of a specific moment in time and encrypt with a new algorithm that will be used from then on
    - strbean 1y ago
      The problem is that the owner needs to claim their wallet and migrate it to the new encryption. Just freezing the state at a specific moment doesn't help; to claim the wallet in the new system I just need the private key for the old wallet (as that's the sole way to prove ownership). In our hypothetical post-quantum scenario, anyone with a quantum computer can get the private key and migrate the wallet, becoming the de-facto new owner. I think this is all overhyped though. It seems likely we will have plenty of warning to migrate prior to achieving big enough quantum computers to steal wallets. Per wikipedia: > The latest quantum resource estimates for breaking a curve with a 256-bit modulus (128-bit security level) are 2330 qubits and 126 billion Toffoli gates. IIRC this is speculated to be the reason ECDSA was selected for Bitcoin in the first place.
jacquesm 1y ago
> The majority of minors just need to agree. That's an uncomfortably apt typo.
udev4096 1y ago
The problem is all the lost BTC wallets, which is speculated to be a lot and also one of the biggest reason for the current BTC price, who obviously cannot upgrade to PQ. There is currently a radical proposal of essentially making all those lost wallets worthless, unless they migrate [1] [1] - https://github.com/jlopp/bips/blob/quantum_migration/bip-post-quantum-migration.mediawiki https://github.com/jlopp/bips/blob/quantum_migration/bip-pos...
- shwaj 1y ago
  I’m not sure there’s a better alternative.
chermi 1y ago
Hey, why are you bringing the kids into this! ;) "The majority of minors"

I don’t see why bitcoin wouldn’t update its software in such a case. The majority of minors just need to agree. But why wouldn’t they if the alternative is going to zero?

jonathanlydall 1y ago

Sir Alexander Dane: MINERS, not MINORS.

FergusArgyll 1y ago
That actually confused me. I thought he he meant "the majority of the minority" while I was pretty sure it's just a simple majority
jacquesm 1y ago
"Ahhhh... now you tell me" (Formerly Prince Andrew, at some point).

andrewstuart2 1y ago

I'll tell you right now, no way my kids would agree until they're at least adults. They don't even know what asymmetric cryptography is.

LPisGood 1y ago
I’m confused, are your kids major Bitcoin miners?
- andrewstuart2 1y ago
  Not major miners, but minor miners (if you count Minecraft).
- jdiff 1y ago
  GGP used the term "minors," GP is running with the typo.

andrewla 1y ago

How could updating the software possibly make a difference here? If the encryption is cracked, then who is to say who owns which Bitcoin? As soon as I try to transfer any coin that I own, I expose my public key, your "Quantum Computer" cracks it, and you offer a competing transaction with a higher fee to send the Bitcoin to your slush fund. No amount of software fixes can update this. In theory once an attack becomes feasible on the horizon they could update to post-quantum encryption and offer the ability to transfer from old-style addresses to new-style addresses, but this would be a herculean effort for everyone involved and would require all holders (not miners) to actively update their wallets. Basically infeasible. Fortunately this will never actually happen. It's way more likely that ECDSA is broken by mundane means (better stochastic approaches most likely) than quantum computing being a factor.

iwontberude 1y ago
As you alluded to, network can have two parallel chains where wallets can be upgraded by users asynchronously before PQC is “needed” (a long way away still) which will leave some wallets vulnerable and others safe. It’s not that herculean as most wallets (not most BTC) are in exchanges. The whales will be sufficiently motivated to switch and everyone else it will happen in the background. A nice benefit is it solves the problem with Satoshi’s (of course not a real person or owner) wallet. Satoshi’s wallet becomes the defacto quantum advantage prize. That’s a lot of scratch for a research lab.
- jwpapi 1y ago
  Not even needed you can just copy network state of a specific moment in time and encrypt with a new algorithm that will be used from then on
  - strbean 1y ago
    The problem is that the owner needs to claim their wallet and migrate it to the new encryption. Just freezing the state at a specific moment doesn't help; to claim the wallet in the new system I just need the private key for the old wallet (as that's the sole way to prove ownership). In our hypothetical post-quantum scenario, anyone with a quantum computer can get the private key and migrate the wallet, becoming the de-facto new owner. I think this is all overhyped though. It seems likely we will have plenty of warning to migrate prior to achieving big enough quantum computers to steal wallets. Per wikipedia: > The latest quantum resource estimates for breaking a curve with a 256-bit modulus (128-bit security level) are 2330 qubits and 126 billion Toffoli gates. IIRC this is speculated to be the reason ECDSA was selected for Bitcoin in the first place.

jacquesm 1y ago

> The majority of minors just need to agree. That's an uncomfortably apt typo.

udev4096 1y ago

The problem is all the lost BTC wallets, which is speculated to be a lot and also one of the biggest reason for the current BTC price, who obviously cannot upgrade to PQ. There is currently a radical proposal of essentially making all those lost wallets worthless, unless they migrate [1] [1] - https://github.com/jlopp/bips/blob/quantum_migration/bip-post-quantum-migration.mediawiki https://github.com/jlopp/bips/blob/quantum_migration/bip-pos...

shwaj 1y ago
I’m not sure there’s a better alternative.

chermi 1y ago

Hey, why are you bringing the kids into this! ;) "The majority of minors"