On June 19, 2020, the massive industrial firm Honeywell told the public the company is now running a quantum computer that effectively leverages six effective quantum bits, or qubits. Honeywell’s machine is two times more powerful than the quantum computers designed by IBM and Google. With Honeywell revealing the new quantum computer, skeptics have already started discussing the future effects on Bitcoin and 256-bit encryption.
Honeywell Reveals a Powerful Six Qubit Quantum Computer Invoking Theoretical Discussions About Bitcoin’s 256-bit Cryptography
In January 2019, bitcoiners started talking about theoretical attacks against the Bitcoin network, after IBM unveiled its Q System One at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2019. The following September, the Bitcoin network threat conversation and debates picked up again, when the press reported on Google’s quantum computer performing a calculation that deemed it the “world’s most powerful supercomputer.”
Another big reveal has invoked discussions of a quantum computer breaking 256-bit encryption and the foundations of Bitcoin’s cryptography once again, and debates have started to heat up. The reason for these new conversations is due to an announcement made on Thursday from the firm Honeywell.
According to the reports, Honeywell’s new quantum computer is two times more efficient than the IBM Q System One and Google’s supercomputer. Reports say that Honeywell’s quantum computer is a “game-changer” and it is heralded for the resulting “volume” of quantum processing power.
Now even though Honeywell’s quantum computer is quite powerful, in order to break Bitcoin’s 256-bit cryptography, it would take anywhere between 2,000 to 3,000 qubits of computing power. Estimates say that it would take computer scientists roughly a decade to even attempt to crack today’s 256-bit encryption, or projects like Bitcoin that leverage the cryptography.
Honeywell’s latest machine is live and it has the processing power of around six qubits, which is quite powerful, but still a few thousand qubits less than what is needed to even threaten Bitcoin. The industry giant Honeywell and its new quantum computer is fast and has received praise for its “quantum volume of 64.” The publicly-traded company worth over $80 billion is also involved with blockchain research and development.
Honeywell International Inc., has revealed a number of projects that leverage blockchain ledgers. However, with Honeywell’s new quantum computer, skeptics think that it could threaten Bitcoin’s underlying infrastructure, specifically SHA256. A number of Bitcoin-based hash values could theoretically make generated private keys vulnerable to a brute force attacks.
2^128 is a Really Big Number
In a Twitter discussion between long time Bitcoin proponent Gabor Gurbacs, Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, and Blockstream’s Adam Back, the group also discussed the theoretical threat.
“Even if one could simulate a quantum computer classically, there are a number of quantum-secure signature schemes that can be used to secure Bitcoin/blockchains,” Gurbacs tweeted on June 19. “I expect those signature schemes to be implemented as practical/deployable quantum computing power increases,” he added.
Moreover, bitcoiners also discussed the well known bitcoin pundit Alistair Milne’s recent experience, when he had a single BTC giveaway where he gave out 8/12 seed words on Twitter. His mnemonic phrase or seed was brute force attacked, and the person wrote an interesting Medium blog post on how the assault was successful. Still, many veteran bitcoiners are simply not concerned about Honeywell’s new supercomputer or brute force attacks. After, Milne’s giveaway was spoiled, he jokingly tweeted about the subject last Thursday. “Lost all my bitcoin in a 1-trillion calculation brute force attack,” Milne said.
Of course, Milne made it far easier for hackers, by giving away a number of seed words too early and the developer who brute-forced the seed, John Cantrell, noted that it is much harder to do this to an unknown seed. In a tweet thread on June 19, Cantrell said that 12-word Bitcoin mnemonics themselves are secure, as long as people don’t “give out any of [the] words on Twitter.”
“Your bitcoin is safe. 2^128 is a REALLY big number – Just don’t let anyone near your seed words,” Cantrell added.
Extra Protection: Don’t Reuse Bitcoin Addresses
Other people on Twitter also stressed that they did not fear Honeywell’s new supercomputer or theoretical brute force attacks on Bitcoin because the cryptography is double protected.
The software engineer at Cashapp, Danny Diekroeger, tweeted about the quantum discussion and said: “Even a 51% isn’t the end of the world — It would take continued cash flow to keep the attack running so it ends eventually.”
“As for quantum – it is a risk for every form of cryptography/encryption, etc — The entire internet is as risk,” Diekroeger further stated.
“I expect best practice quantum algorithms to emerge, and worst case Bitcoin could fork (hard or soft not sure) to include state of the art algorithms — There are two main primitives used in bitcoin: hash functions and ECDSA (elliptic curve digital signature algorithm). Quantum would crack ECDSA first, far before it would crack hash functions. Mining uses hash functions, so quantum won’t affect that at first. ECDSA is what gives us private/public keys and signing.” Diekroeger added:
So if you share your public key, an advanced quantum computer could figure out your private key. Good news is most bitcoin addresses don’t share a public key — They share a hash of the public key so there’s extra protection. We don’t reveal our public key until we *spend* from an address. So by simply not reusing addresses, you’ll be protected from quantum computing even if ECDSA is compromised.
Whatever the case may be, Honeywell’s new six quantum bits have given bitcoiners another moment to argue about whether or not quantum computers are a threat to the Bitcoin network. For now, most veterans are not at all concerned that the 10-year timeline estimates are probably much shorter, with Honeywell’s latest six qubit innovation. Despite this, many Bitcoin optimists believe they can safely fork the code toward a quantum-resistant algorithm if they needed to in the future.
What do you think about Honeywell’s new six quantum bit computer and the possible threat to Bitcoin? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Honeywell, Honeywell’s Quantum Computer
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