Hacker News Reader

Comment by snailmailstare | Hacker News Reader

> Given that a wallet is basically a bank account except it cannot be seized by a government

All wallets could become worthless in a weekend if a government makes the wrong stride in quantum research..

El Salvador is not recommending Bitcoin and found low interest in actual use.

Madoff also had a fund that could return very well. Satoshi just has to show up and cash out to ruin his pyramid or push the pyramid entirely to the US tax payers right now. Seems improbable like the chairman of NASDAQ running a scam..

These bizarre scams have no place in a real economy and we have to get rid of 0% interest to kill this garbage.

View on HN

> All wallets could become worthless in a weekend if a government makes the wrong stride in quantum research..

No need for the wrong stride in quantum research. A government can make it illegal and seize the exchanges and watch actual value go to a round 0 in seconds.

A nation's government has a vested interest in preserving the value and viability of its own currency, not Bitcoin's.

If quantum computing breaks Bitcoin hash then it also breaks any other encryption so I can ssh to your server, login to your bank account, change the code in your github repo.

> El Salvador is not recommending Bitcoin and found low interest in actual use.

El Salvador is not a person.

The president of El Salvador is hardcore Bitcoin believer. El Salvador, the country, is stacking as much Bitcoin as they can, despite pressure from IMF that tries (I wonder why?) to stop them.

> Madoff also had a fund that could return very well

Except he didn't. He was lying about returns of his investments and it crashed and burned when the truth came out.

Blockchain is fully transparent. Every Bitcoin transaction ever made is recorded in immutable database and you get to read the full ledger, from the day it was created.

There is no way to lie about Bitcoin transaction. The current price is decided by an auction with millions of participants.

> If quantum computing breaks Bitcoin hash then it also breaks any other encryption so I can ssh to your server, login to your bank account, change the code in your github repo.

OpenSSH >9.0 has algorithms in place for the post-quantum world:

     * ssh(1), sshd(8): use the hybrid Streamlined NTRU Prime + x25519 key
       exchange method by default ("sntrup761x25519-sha512@openssh.com").
       The NTRU algorithm is believed to resist attacks enabled by future
       quantum computers and is paired with the X25519 ECDH key exchange
       (the previous default) as a backstop against any weaknesses in
       NTRU Prime that may be discovered in the future. The combination
       ensures that the hybrid exchange offers at least as good security
       as the status quo.

* https://www.openssh.com/txt/release-9.0

RFC draft:

* https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-sshm-mlkem-hybri...

* https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/sshm/documents/

Quantum research is nothing but a scam designed to extract grant money and pump share values higher until they can actually factor a number larger than 21 using Shor's algorithm. They did that in 2012. Everything since then has been smoke and mirrors. For as much as you want to call Bitcoin a scam, you're relying on an incredibly more obvious one in your hatred of it.

Additionally, El Salvador is only "dropping" bitcoin (officially) because they are being economically pressured by the IMF. So much for sovereignty for the little guy and democracy (he WAS elected, you know?).

I find the scientific community that is either researching or confused by quantum phenomenon to be a lot more legitimate than the financial community who are either researching or confused by blockchain.

Bitcoin price, 2012: $13.50

Largest number factored with Shor's algorithm, 2012: 21

Bitcoin price, 2025: $90,000

Largest number factored with Shor's algorithm, 2025: 21

Bitcoins price 1818: $0 Largest number factored with Shor's algorithm, 1818: 0 Bicoins price 1920: $0 Largest number factored with Shor's algorithm, 1920: 0

Point of numerology: 0

I don't have to rebuke this, do I? This is a pretty miserable reply.

AI winter means ChatGPT is a figure of our collective imagination or that past performance doesn't predict future returns or the rate of scientific developments?

Maybe you have a real thought on that instead of an arbitrary comparison of numbers that don't really relate.. I.e. Quantum research investment would be at least be a faith number that says something about the number of believers in something. What that has to do with the possibility that it falls apart I don't know.

Yeah, I have a real thought: QC is a scam, and you're buying into it. Not much more than that.

If you want to put this to an empirical test, you should buy $10 worth of quantum computing stock and $10 of bitcoin and see which performs better over the next 10 years.

QC might be impossible and some involved may view it as just an income scam, I simply doubt that they all do.. I don't really see a difference in bitcoins price. A large portion of crypto mercenaries are no doubt propping up even the more legitimate coin prices by utility in pig butchering, etc, in getting a mark into the right behaviors..

I don't know if the pricing of the champagne in the "champagne room" should be taken as reflecting market sentiment just because it has been globalized. In some sense any kind of scam that runs long enough is just the regular market, but if it has no legitimate revenue I think it must reach the plateau where it can't fulfill the fad function of investing in it. What is the market for currency as a casino, Forex is only half that illegitimate purpose and it doesn't command much respect.

The cryptocurrency space is going to be much more than a "casino" in the near future. You can already buy tokenized stocks and treasury bills if you're not a resident of the USA. Trump said crypto capital, so expect at least that and a lot more. Why should stock market trading be limited to when the NYSE is open, anyway? Pay attention to what Eric Trump says about WLFI.

Without Chelsea Clinton's endorsement, I don't think I could possibly use a 24 hour day trading tool. The US is a flim-flam nation now and you shouldn't buy all the crap they sell each other on TV.

Cypto-currency has vanishingly few good and legitimate use cases, but:

> All wallets could become worthless in a weekend if a government makes the wrong stride in quantum research..

TBF, you could say something similar about all stocks remotely related to transportation the moment someone invents a teleporter.

I agree there's a difference there, but I don't think it has to do with the vulnerability of the asset.

In something like transportation one is betting real returns come in before the asset is worthless. Bitcoin has no return so one is betting the asset goes up because it is scarce and you get out before it is worthless. Real estate at least has rents or personal use.

The return of Bitcoin that it represents the next step towards a superior form of money and an evolution of how financial systems work in a digitized world. It's "stock price" increases the more true and realized this idea becomes.

Real estate has taxes, insurance, repairs, tenants that can trash your place, competition from other real estate, illiquidity, high transaction costs, hurricanes, fires, floods, riots, is impossible to move.

Bitcoin has none of those problems.

Having a suitcase full of money has none of those problems.. And under performs because it does nothing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com