Quantum Won't Replace Your Computer

Quantum Won't Replace Your Computer(medium.com)

18 points by jensenbox 301 days ago | 18 comments

bawolff 298 days ago |

Sometimes i feel like there are more people debunking the "quantum revolution" than people who actually believe it.

Yes there are some charlatans trying to sell quantum bullshit, but for the most part this is debunking a myth that doesn't exist.

gsf_emergency_2 298 days ago | |

Sometimes I feel that I should think of 98% of funded research as slop, and get on with life.

But (boring) engineering research, most of math, and (some academic) CS publications seem much less sloppy, I'll give you that

082349872349872 298 days ago | | |

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2843975_A_Partial_O... is v interesting, but only goes to 7, so it lacks a 10.5.1?

bawolff 298 days ago | | |

For quantum computing the real bullshit comes from private companies like D-wave and IBM.

timhigins 298 days ago |

good points, but partly ai generated?

rvz 298 days ago |

Well quantum computing's only economically valuable use-case is cracking RSA and other weak quantum-vulnerable cryptography.

But there is a $100B+ (and growing) bounty to crack satoshi's Bitcoin wallets. The higher the bounty grows, the more urgent it is to break Bitcoin to claim Satoshi's wallet.

(Unless Bitcoin forks into a quantum-resistant hashing method).

bigyabai 298 days ago | |

> there is a $100B+ (and growing) bounty to crack satoshi's Bitcoin wallets

That's like saying there's a $100T+ bounty on robbing the IMF. Bitcoin is backed by nothing, if you pull out a Jenga block that big then the whole thing is tits up worthless.

It will also (incidentally) make you the enemy of some particularly powerful people with connections to criminal networks.

bawolff 298 days ago | |

> (Unless Bitcoin forks into a quantum-resistant hashing method).

Aren't the hash functions bitcoin uses already quantum resitant?

> Well quantum computing's only economically valuable use-case is cracking RSA and other weak quantum-vulnerable cryptography.

The exciting use case is simulating quantum systems for physics & chemistry research. Cracking RSA is mostly a meme use case since the moment it looks like someone is about to get one everyone immediately switches algorithms.

ameliaquining 298 days ago | | |

The hash function used for proof-of-work is, but the signature schemes for authenticating transactions aren't. So you can't make a bunch of counterfeit bitcoins out of thin air, but you can steal other people's bitcoins, which isn't really better.

fnord77 298 days ago | |

won't Bitcoin become worthless the millisecond any wallet gets cracked?

hattmall 298 days ago | | |

Not necessarily, the majority of Bitcoin trades, which are it's entire source of value, are never even executed in the block chain at all. Neither the block chain nor the exchanges could actually handle the volume of a significant percent of holders withdrawing in a short duration. Now I don't know what that percent is but it's likely significantly less than 20%.

As long as there's unaudited exchanges minting so called stable coins at will. The entire crypto sphere is valuated fully devoid from any actual underlying fundamental. Cracking a wallet could be the catalyst for its undoing but it could also be something else or nothing at all.