Comment by RIMR | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RIMR | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Strong encryption turning into weak encryption is a severe problem, but it's a manageable and resolvable one also. The ease of exploiting quantum encryption-breaking might not be comparable to exploiting a public ledger of trust like the blockchain.

If BTC has a multi-trillion-dollar market cap, and quantum exploitation occurs, the only thing that backs the currency (trust) vanishes, and the values quickly drops to zero.

If we are reliant on BTC for global finances in the future, as many are proposing, this could result in a global depression.

This might be the single biggest problem quantum computing could bring us, short of the "talking to alternate universes" theoretical use cases some people are talking about (that probably won't happen).

Encrypted data can be re-encrypted to be quantum-secure. The vulnerability is temporary

A compromised blockchain dies forever. A brand new quantum-secure blockchain would need to be invented.

Look up the term "fork" in the context of cryptocurrencies. It will answer all your questions and you will save yourself a lot of brain cycles.

If crypto is broken, any fork could be broken too.

It's a question of how much time a new algorithm buys.

There are quantum resistant methods forks can use.

But my old keys, that hold my funds, are still traditionally encrypted, so how am I supposed to securely claim my same bitcoins on the other side of the fork?

How do you migrate the old keys to a quantum fork without allowing the exploit to still exist retroactively?

I could exploit the old blockchain, then migrate my stolen keys to the quantum blockchain.

Forking doesn't work here. Traditional computing and Quantum computing are different enough that "porting" isn't just something you can do.

"Guys, we are going to start quantum exploiting your blockchain for profit in a couple of months, please fork before that XOXO" - No criminal ever

More likely: "We'll skim from dormant wallets that won't be immediately noticed, and when it becomes too obvious, we move all of Satoshi's bitcoins to force an emergency fork that launders our profits".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com