You'd better sell your bitcoins

[John Clark]

Quantum computer expert Scott Aaronson has always been a vocal critic of the excessive hype surrounding his subject, but just a few days ago he wrote this: 

"I now think it’s a live possibility that we’ll have a fault-tolerant quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm before the next US presidential election. And I say that not only because of the possibility of the next US presidential election getting cancelled, or preempted by runaway superintelligence!"

When we have a quantum computer big enough to run Shor's algorithm, bitcoin becomes worthless. Aaronson then says this:

"The two biggest known application areas for QC remain (a) quantum simulation and (b) the breaking of public-key cryptography, just as they were thirty years ago."

Quantum Computing, too much to handle

John K Clark

[Stathis Papaioannou]

Stathis Papaioannou

Quantum Computing, too much to handle.

There are QC resistant algorithms that could be used instead.

[John Clark]

Yes, but that's not going to help those who own Bitcoins. And people hope that these new algorithms can resist attacks by quantum computers but there is no proof that they actually can, so after Bitcoin has lost people hundreds of billions of dollars I think everybody is going to be very suspicious of ANY cryptocurrency.

John K Clark

[Stathis Papaioannou]

If it appeared that quantum computers were likely to break the current cryptographic algorithms within the next few months, the network would be migrated to a new, quantum-resistant algorithm. This would require consensus from miners or stakers, which would be achievable if it were clear that failing to upgrade would render the cryptocurrency worthless. However, this process would not protect the system if a sufficiently powerful quantum computer, or even a new classical algorithm, were developed suddenly and without warning. In that case, the system could be compromised before an upgrade was possible, and trust in cryptocurrencies would likely collapse.

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Stathis Papaioannou

[John Clark]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 9:55 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If it appeared that quantum computers were likely to break the current cryptographic algorithms within the next few months, the network would be migrated to a new, quantum-resistant algorithm. This would require consensus from miners or stakers, which would be achievable if it were clear that failing to upgrade would render the cryptocurrency worthless.

 

It would not be easy to reach a consensus, the evidence would need to be very very strong, and by then the panic selling would already be well underway. And after one algorithm had failed catastrophically after years of assuming it was invulnerable, I think the general public will be very reluctant to trust another.

John K Clark

[Giulio Prisco]

Like I still had bitcoin to sell :-( :-( I had thousands! I sold them
at less than $10/btc long ago.

> John K Clark
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[John Clark]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 10:56 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Like I still had bitcoin to sell :-( :-( I had thousands! I sold them at less than $10/btc long ago.

Wow, that sucks!  

John K Clark

 

[John Clark]

It occurs to me that if you had a fault-tolerant quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm then to wreck bitcoin you'd only need to hack the account of Satoshi Nakamoto because it isestimated to contain 1.1 million bitcoins. 

 John K Clark