Comment on Fear that quantum computing is on the cusp of cracking cryptocurrency's encryption spurs a global investment firm to remove Bitcoin from recommendations

evol@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• pulsewidth@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Businesses that have smart leaders are already implementing (or have already completed implementing) post-quantum encryption systems into their business to protect them for when quantum computers and quantum programming mature and make their existing encryption defeatable. For most systems it’s just a matter of a software update and re-encrypting any data.

  Eg: arstechnica.com/…/why-signals-post-quantum-makeov…

  This is a problem for public proof-of-work systems that cannot change their encryption, eg: all crypto. Bitcoin cannot change how their coins are encrypted without redesigning and completely rebuilding their public blockchain - it would require concensus from all major bitcoin users and businesses (coin exchanges etc), and could potentially leave any prior-minted bitcoin vulnerable anyway. It will not happen anytime soon - and when it does happen, it may be too late.

  Hence, its actually pretty high on the list of quantum targets, and will likely be attacked as soon as it’s available. Some people might be able to steal a bunch of Bitcoin and exchange it for other new (secure) coins or for cash, and get out before the Bitcoin public realize its been cracked. At which time the Bitcoin price will crash hard and may not recover (depending on what action they take to resolve the issue), so the cautious are getting out asap.

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  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Businesses/orgs that have smart leaders are already implementing (or have already completed implementing) post-quantum encryption algs/methods into their systems to protect them for when quantum computers and quantum programming mature,

    Is it actually smart though? Or are these people simply panicking about technology that may never exist?

    And there’s really no technical reason why crypto can’t switch to quantum safe encryption. The better cryptos are already transitioning.

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  • evol@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Businesses/orgs that have smart leaders

    So very few

    But agreed its easy for centralized businesses/entities to eventually migrate their stuff into quantum secure systems. Theirs like a 100B for whoever can crack satoshi’s bitcoin keys

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• LiveLM@lemmy.zip ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Damn right. If encryption no longer works fucking crypto wouldn’t even be in my top 500.

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• Gucci_Minh@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Well not all encryption, mostly just public key based algorithms. AES-256 should be good for a while yet even in a post quantum computing world.

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  • evol@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    forgot to specify asymmetric encryption good point

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