Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is not afraid of the emergence of a quantum computer and does not believe it will harm Bitcoin.
Buterin wrote on October 23rd Twitterthat the news about Google’s quantum computer is “evidence that a given phenomenon exists and the ability to extract power from it (a quantum computer).” He added that all this is “still far from directed use towards useful things.”
Vitalik Buterin is not the only one who disregards quantum computers
Bitcoin evangelist Andreas Antonopoulos has recently emerged as having similar feelings about Google’s quantum computer. In early October, he said the potential new hardware posed no threat to the Bitcoin network:
“What is the impact (of a quantum computer) on mining and the cryptocurrency world in general? None. Nothing is really happening. Quantum supremacy, as Google describes it, demonstrates the practical application of quantum computers to certain classes of problems. Those classes of problems are not the same class of problems that we’re talking about when we talk about breaking cryptography.”
Theoretically, quantum computers could significantly speed up the process of solving complex calculations, and thus could pose a real threat to Bitcoin’s proof-of-concept mechanism, as well as blockchain technology in general. Quantum computing will be infinitely superior to modern cryptography, in a way that it could theoretically reverse cryptocurrency transactions and possibly gain access to private keys. So from that perspective, it poses a real threat to the market.
PoS support
And Scott Aaronson, a quantum computing expert at the University of Texas at Austin, recently suggested that Google’s quantum computing technology could actually be a huge help in improving the technology behind cryptocurrencies that use the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm. He wrote in a blog post that quantum computing could be used to help prove “third party skepticism.”
“This in turn could have applications for proof-of-stake (PoS) cryptocurrencies and other crypto protocols. I hope to see more applications like this in the near future.”
– he added.
So maybe the cryptocurrency community’s initial fears about the quantum computer were exaggerated?
