Google's Quantum Computing Chip “Willow” Raises Concerns About Bitcoin Security

[ABCbits]

--snip--

Even if that happens, there will be a lot of pressure to ban its use. If misused, it can disrupt the security system in almost all areas related to the Internet, as mentioned above.

Examples of products whose use is even banned in many countries because they disturb privacy: Google glass (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/10494231/The-places-where-Google-Glass-is-banned.html).

But IMO such pressure is meaningless, when government will become it's main customer to crack all kinds of encrypted data they've obtained in past. Besides, there are already laws (such as CFAA on US) about misusing computer.

[Freemind]

If that quantum chip were 100% functional and easily programmable, they would already be mining Bitcoin and every cryptocurrency that had any value since the chip first cooled down. Doing all that should be a small percentage of that chip's capacity. Before attacking Bitcoin, it would be used in many other fields, and I am sure the first field would be the military.

As I have said on other occasions, a weapon is not only used to attack, it is also used to defend oneself. So who knows if that computing power could, at some point, be used to improve Bitcoin.

What we need to know things is time, trial and error, not big headlines written for the masses.

[Stompix]

Well what about solo mining? Can a quantum computer with this chip manage to find the block alone before the big pools and get the reward?

No it can't solve a block because it lacks the capacity to do so, this is not about the speed or computational power but about capacity, rather than your game running poorly because your CPU and GPU sucks is more akin to your memory not enough to load it. You will need to account for the noise a computer capable of at least 1000 qubits to actually try mining,  willow is 10 times less than this, and again, that power is without error rates.

Also, there is the problem of keeping the qubits stable, remaining in a superposition so they can keep processing the information, willow has not solved this, traditional computation has one failure in close to one in a quadrillion m willow is one in a thousand, when this fails, all fails! 
Completely useless for mining!

[yhiaali3]

But IMO such pressure is meaningless, when government will become it's main customer to crack all kinds of encrypted data they've obtained in past. Besides, there are already laws (such as CFAA on US) about misusing computer.

This is about concepts, for example when hackers steal exchange money and launder it it is called money laundering and when the government confiscates this stolen money itself it becomes legitimate like Bitcoin which the US government confiscated from Silk Road for example.

Here the same thing if the hacker for example breaks passwords it will be called misuse but if the government breaks encryption or passwords the process will be legitimate and will not be called misuse of quantum computers.

No it can't solve a block because it lacks the capacity to do so, this is not about the speed or computational power but about capacity, rather than your game running poorly because your CPU and GPU sucks is more akin to your memory not enough to load it. You will need to account for the noise a computer capable of at least 1000 qubits to actually try mining,  willow is 10 times less than this, and again, that power is without error rates.

Also, there is the problem of keeping the qubits stable, remaining in a superposition so they can keep processing the information, willow has not solved this, traditional computation has one failure in close to one in a quadrillion m willow is one in a thousand, when this fails, all fails! 
Completely useless for mining!

Thank you for shedding light on these points I was not aware of these details.

[electronicash]

so basically this willow quantum computing chip is not enough to hold the key to break Bitcoin security. yet they hyped this too much that is can sold a complex problem that a normal computer can't solve in trillion years.

the nerds and getting nerdier every time. but the Quantum AI team seems not up to hack Bitcoin. the direction they are going is that  quantum computing can help develop a battery to last longer. i'm surprise though that they able to claim instantaneous travel is possible. 

[Stompix]

so basically this willow quantum computing chip is not enough to hold the key to break Bitcoin security. yet they hyped this too much that is can sold a complex problem that a normal computer can't solve in trillion years.

Yes, it can solve a problem that a normal computer takes a trillion years, it is perfectly possible and proven, the thing about breaking ECDSA is the number of logical qubits it needs, again it's about basic computational capacity not speed.

Once it reaches 1000 logical qubits it could probably successfully attack the chain in a matter of minutes, solve all 2000 blocks in a minute then let the chain hang with one bloc per day, not to mention it could rewrite the whole chain and invalidate every tx in the last year by mining empty blocks,  once it goes above 2000 qubits no previously used address would be safe, so we would have to either switch algos or stop address re-use.

But again, maintaining 2000 logical qubits in a superposition is not a thing that will happen this decade probably not even the next one.

[joniboini]

Here the same thing if the hacker for example breaks passwords it will be called misuse but if the government breaks encryption or passwords the process will be legitimate and will not be called misuse of quantum computers.

But the pushback from the public would be high I assume. Unless they don't announce it in public of course. After all, this can get abused easily, not to mention there are tons of news of government agencies arresting the wrong person or something similar. Won't this just push people to innovate new algorithms for general encryption? I doubt they will make them criminal just because they develop a quantum-resistant algorithm either. CMIIW.

[yhiaali3]

But the pushback from the public would be high I assume. Unless they don't announce it in public of course. After all, this can get abused easily, not to mention there are tons of news of government agencies arresting the wrong person or something similar. Won't this just push people to innovate new algorithms for general encryption? I doubt they will make them criminal just because they develop a quantum-resistant algorithm either.

Sure, this is an open field for innovation and anyone can develop whatever algorithms they want.
There is already research going on at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to issue new cryptographic standards to implement quantum-resistant cryptography in Bitcoin, you can find some details in this article:
https://editverse.com/bitcoin-quantum-resistance/

[Husna QA]

-snip-

But IMO such pressure is meaningless, when government will become it's main customer to crack all kinds of encrypted data they've obtained in past. Besides, there are already laws (such as CFAA on US) about misusing computer.

However, if the primary customer is the government, the project would be kept secret and not announced publicly, as with Google's  Quantum Computing Chip 'Willow' project.

-snip-

Sure, this is an open field for innovation and anyone can develop whatever algorithms they want.
There is already research going on at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to issue new cryptographic standards to implement quantum-resistant cryptography in Bitcoin, you can find some details in this article:
https://editverse.com/bitcoin-quantum-resistance/

I'm reminded of viruses vs. antivirus. When a virus has more variants,  the antivirus must also update its database to deal with them.

Likewise, when a quantum computer appeared that was thought to be able to break the encryption used in Bitcoin, innovation also emerged to secure  Bitcoin with quantum-resistant cryptography.

[Freemind]

so basically this willow quantum computing chip is not enough to hold the key to break Bitcoin security. yet they hyped this too much that is can sold a complex problem that a normal computer can't solve in trillion years.

the nerds and getting nerdier every time. but the Quantum AI team seems not up to hack Bitcoin. the direction they are going is that  quantum computing can help develop a battery to last longer. i'm surprise though that they able to claim instantaneous travel is possible. 

That is precisely what I was referring to in my post, all of this is nothing more than headlines to attract traffic and open a debate about something that makes no sense in the short or medium term. The theoretical basis is good and should work, but the practical basis still has many problems to solve to be able to carry it out, that is why I said that there is still a lot of trial and error to be done to have more precise and applicable results.

~snip~
I'm reminded of viruses vs. antivirus. When a virus has more variants,  the antivirus must also update its database to deal with them.

Likewise, when a quantum computer appeared that was thought to be able to break the encryption used in Bitcoin, innovation also emerged to secure  Bitcoin with quantum-resistant cryptography.

I said it in another of my posts in a thread that also talked about Bitcoin and quantum computing. When the time comes (it is still many years away) when the power of quantum computers can not only be used to attack Bitcoin, but can also be used to protect the network.

[Stompix]

There is already research going on at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to issue new cryptographic standards to implement quantum-resistant cryptography in Bitcoin, you can find some details in this article:
https://editverse.com/bitcoin-quantum-resistance/

That thing doesn't cover two issues:
- breaking ECDSA and public keys, the first level of a quantum computer in the example would be able to break an already used address, but not a new address that hasn't exposed its public key, so avoiding address re-use would keep you safe
- the problem with a new system like Falcon si that they re 10 times bigger in size, and with 1 mb block 

[Bobcrypto]

Bitcoin's encryption is based on elliptic curve cryptography which is actually considered to be more resistant to quantum attacks than other types of cryptography.

With the existing model quantum computing can affect more than one way, SHA-256 hashes can be mined faster than any pools so it's possible to mine all the bitcoin blocks to themselves and also by breaking ECDSA, it is possible to derive private keys for any known public address.

About this particular chip this is not the quantum computing that can affect the network in anyway, it's probably the beginning of the quantum computing era but with the time there cen be developments made in the network to resistant to quantum computing.

Well, the ideas behind quantum computer on Bitcoin security look like a threat, but the beauty of it all is the quick awareness to many crypto experts and how they may be plans to handle such threats or the risks it poses to the crypto ecosystem.
First, the prompt awareness of quantum computer to the Bitcoin security, secondly, the preparation ahead to wage the threat. I think that the quantum computer risks is being monitored since the information surfaced, and obviously, there shall be solutions for this in the future once we get to that time in my opinion.

[Findingnemo]

First, the prompt awareness of quantum computer to the Bitcoin security, secondly, the preparation ahead to wage the threat. I think that the quantum computer risks is being monitored since the information surfaced, and obviously, there shall be solutions for this in the future once we get to that time in my opinion.

Crypto community is well aware of the threat that quantum computing poses but it's not yet a reality just the users are being paranoid by the google twisted words and in future if there is actually a one the network security protocols can be altered with fork to make it resistant to the bruteforcing attacks.

[Stompix]

Crypto community is well aware of the threat that quantum computing poses but it's not yet a reality just the users are being paranoid by the google twisted words and in future if there is actually a one the network security protocols can be altered with fork to make it resistant to the bruteforcing attacks.

It's not that simple.
To make it resistant there are solutions, the problem is the amount of data needed, if you make quantum-resistant keys you will drop the capacity of the chain from 60% to 20% so we will end again in the blocksize debate. If things were that easy we would have had the fork already and not cared when quantum computers become a reality, fortunately, enough I don't think they will be a real threat at least this decade.

[TomPluz]

What do you think is this possible with this serious chip or are these just meaningless concerns?

Personally, I am not all concern nor alarmed with any latest development of Quantum Computing courtesy of Google, an American firm operating for many years using the latest technologies available and can be introducing many innovations in different industries. What I am more afraid can be a counterpart technology that may soon be introduced and unleashed to the whole world...because I am sure that would be totally disruptive and with China at helm we would know what it might be used for...and just like the chaos brought on by China's DeepSeek. In summary, anything coming from USA is not to be afraid of...but the same thing can never be said that of China. Just my personal opinion, anyhow.