Not too long ago, Challenge Eleven (a quantum computing analysis group) announced a 1 bitcoin reward for the primary crew capable of full a problem to display breaking a ECC (elliptic curve cryptograph) key utilizing Shor’s algorithm on a quantum laptop.
The deadline for this problem is April fifth, 2026, which means with a view to qualify for the prize a crew should display breaking a key pair it should be finished earlier than that deadline.
That is frankly a totally absurd and meaningless prize for quite a lot of causes, the primary of which is the deadline of slightly below a yr from in the present day. Even extremely optimistic projections in regards to the progress of quantum computing put the timeline of virtually reaching such a purpose at extra like 5-10 years. Anticipating a workable proof of idea demonstration that truly breaks a keypair in a single yr is fairly laughable at face worth, even in case you do view quantum computing as a fabric risk within the quick time period.
Subsequent is the issue of financial incentives. A single bitcoin is at present price roughly $80,000. That’s frankly not some huge cash within the grand scheme of issues. Particularly in relation to the appliance of a leading edge expertise like quantum computing that may carry out a whole class of computation exponentially sooner than a classical laptop. Think about how rather more worthwhile issues could possibly be finished with a working quantum laptop.
You may snoop on web connections no matter TLS, breaking safe connections to banks, fairness brokerages, personal company networks not utilizing post-quantum cryptography. You may break each personal messenger utility on the planet, you could possibly decrypt any PGP encrypted message despatched over electronic mail that you just knew the general public key for. You may break the whole DNS system’s certificates authority hierarchy, permitting you to impersonate any server on the planet a person tries to connect with.
All of these items have immeasurable worth past only a mere $84,000. Why on Earth would somebody with a working quantum laptop publicly reveal that truth to assert a single bitcoin once they may benefit from all these different issues they’d be able to doing?
Okay, let’s sweep all of these potentialities apart and fake the whole world magically migrates to post-quantum cryptography other than Bitcoin. It nonetheless is mindless to attempt to publicly declare this prize when you’ve got a purposeful quantum laptop.
Let’s assume you might have a barely performant sufficient quantum laptop, that it takes an honest period of time to crack a single key. What number of naked public keys are there securing 50 BTC outputs from the primary mining epoch? THOUSANDS of them. Why on Earth would you crack one, after which go inform everybody publicly to assert a single bitcoin? You’ll simply attempt to crack as a lot of these early coinbase rewards as potential earlier than individuals detected you.
Lastly, the timetable by itself is simply absurd. Quantum computer systems at present are usually not even able to factoring prime numbers that folks can do themselves of their heads mentally. In a single yr the expertise goes to leap from that to cracking Bitcoin keys? That’s absurd.
So what the hell is the purpose of this prize besides some publicity stunt? It’s totally meaningless as a critical bounty to perform as a canary within the coalmine for us, regardless of how involved or unconcerned you’re with the timeframes of quantum computer systems as a risk.
This bounty is a joke.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are totally the writer’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.