Lately, Challenge Eleven (a quantum computing analysis group) introduced a 1 bitcoin reward for the primary staff capable of full a problem to exhibit 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 purpose to qualify for the prize a staff should exhibit breaking a key pair it have to be achieved earlier than that deadline.
That is frankly a totally absurd and meaningless prize for various causes, the primary of which is the deadline of slightly below a 12 months from at present. Even extremely optimistic projections concerning the progress of quantum computing put the timeline of virtually reaching such a aim at extra like 5-10 years. Anticipating a workable proof of idea demonstration that truly breaks a keypair in a single 12 months is fairly laughable at face worth, even if you happen to do view quantum computing as a cloth risk within the quick time period.
Subsequent is the issue of financial incentives. A single bitcoin is presently value roughly $80,000. That’s frankly not some huge cash within the grand scheme of issues. Particularly on the subject of the appliance of a innovative know-how like quantum computing that may carry out a whole class of computation exponentially quicker than a classical laptop. Think about how far more useful issues could possibly be achieved with a working quantum laptop.
You can listen in on web connections no matter TLS, breaking safe connections to banks, fairness brokerages, personal company networks not utilizing post-quantum cryptography. You can break each personal messenger utility on the planet, you would decrypt any PGP encrypted message despatched over electronic mail that you simply knew the general public key for. You can break the whole DNS system’s certificates authority hierarchy, permitting you to impersonate any server on the earth 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 reality to assert a single bitcoin once they may make the most of 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 unnecessary to attempt to publicly declare this prize when you’ve got a practical quantum laptop.
Let’s assume you may have a barely performant sufficient quantum laptop, that it takes an honest period of time to crack a single key. How many 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 lots of these early coinbase rewards as potential earlier than folks detected you.
Lastly, the timetable by itself is simply absurd. Quantum computer systems presently usually are not even able to factoring prime numbers that individuals can do themselves of their heads mentally. In a single 12 months the know-how 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 completely meaningless as a severe bounty to perform as a canary within the coalmine for us, regardless of how involved or unconcerned you might be with the timeframes of quantum computer systems as a risk.
This bounty is a joke.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are solely the creator’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
