Can someone explain why Bitcoin isn't crashing due to quantum?

> Can someone explain why Bitcoin isn't crashing due to quantum?

Because the current state of the art in Quantum can only factor 2 digit numbers (maybe) and are probably decades away or breaking traditional encryption or Bitcoin.

> Smart entities are able to extrapolate and understand that quantum computers will be able to crack encryption before 2030 due to accelerating advancements both in intelligence and quantum computers.

This is false. What “smart money” do you know that has indicated they believe this?

>Accelerating advancements, not linear.

Also false. What gives you the impression that this is true? Quantum computing is definitely not increasing at an exponential rate, and LLMs have already hit the top of the S-curve and new models are not exponentially better than previous models, they’re incrementally better.

> So smart money knows that there is not an unreasonable chance Bitcoin gets cracked at around 2027-2028.

Again false. Why do you believe that “smart money” believes this?

Could it be that you believe it, but smart money does not which is why they are still investing in Bitcoin?

gus_massa · 2 months ago

Close to "2 digit numbers in base 2". There are some paper about factoring bigger number like 15, but they assume some structure of the factors.

Because bitcoin is a bubble. Many do not want to hear it but that is what it it.

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. It is no different than beanie babies, baseball cards or any collectibles from the past that people thought would make them rich.

The power of bitcoin is in hodling - convincing people to never sell, so the price will keep going up ad infinitum. Once that belief fades away, the entire thing will collapse like a house of cards.

So to answer your question - bitcoin has not crashed yet because it is all about irrationality. Once rationality pops its head up and people start waking up from the dream, it will be over. The quantum computers have nothing to do with it. Not only the hodlers do not even understand bitcoin and crypto, but even if it were out already, people would not believe it until they would read it in the news and bitcoin would be already crashing. And likely even then they would just spam the internet with diamond hands and refuse to believe it is over(again, irrational behavior).

Personally, I absolutely hate that some-people, some-where, some-time ago, hijacked the idea of crypto currency and turned it into an investment instrument, which it is not. Crypto is a beautiful idea that would have worked miraculously if deployed into the real world as intended and we could have had nice things, but we got hoodwinked and it turned all crypto to shit.

XiphiasX · 2 months ago

Your argument makes no sense. Many things can become bubbles. Land can be bubble, physical gold can be bunble, oil rigs in the sea can be bubble. Yet people choose to focus on Bitcoin which WILL be cracked by quantum, and not physical gold which will NOT be cracked by quantum. According to this knowledge, physical gold, land and emerald mines are severely underpriced and Bitcoin is severely overpriced.

How am I wrong?

Also, Bitcoin is more useful than beanie babies because Bitcoin is censorship resistant, but Beanies can be confiscated. You are fundamentally wrong that Bitcoin holds no intrinic value. Bitcoin’s intrinsic value is method of circumventimg censorship. Tell me how I am wrong and how Bitcoin’s intrinsic value doesn’t stem from censorship resistance due to decentralized nature. You can use GPT5-Pro deep research to aid your answer.

brazukadev · 2 months ago

> How am I wrong?

How are you right? do you believe in yourself enough to put your money at it? If not, this conversation makes no sense.

rcxdude · 2 months ago

Bitcoin is not unique in being hard to block, in fact it's not particularly good at it compared to some other cryptocurrencies. So why should Bitcoin have the largest market cap of any chain, and why should it be worth anything near what it is if it's main purpose is as a medium of exchange and not as a buy-and-hold asset?

einsteinx2 · 2 months ago

ArtTimeInvestor · 2 months ago

The way I understand it:

Introducing quantum resistant addresses is possible via a soft-fork, so rather easy.

Work on it already started: https://github.com/jlopp/bips/blob/quantum_migration/bip-pos...

If capable quantum computers become more probable and the soft fork is not already happening, it will be accelerated. And then everybody will move their coins to quantum resistant addresses.

So it does not look like a major problem. It will lower the price a bit though. Because old, lost coins will be revived and come to the market.

There will also be some type of war around "code is law" because some people will suggest to invalidate old coins on non-quantum-resistant addresses. That will be interesting to watch.

Ekaros · 2 months ago

Financial markets work on very short scales. And have been doing so increasingly. If you can still make money for 2 years. Well you will. And if you believe you are smart you try to time it. And only dump or short at moment you gain most.

Just like during 2008 lot of people noticed that there were issues in the market and assets. But stayed in as there was still money to be made. Honestly it really looks like same thing is now happening again, be it with AI or other type of lending. Cracks are showing, but there is not that much movement yet.

lesuorac · 2 months ago

The world doesn't operate with code as law. If somebody steals all the bitcoins in the world then they'll just fork it [1].

A significant amount of bitcoins are held by known entities (exchanges) so it's pretty trivial for institutions to keep their coins after a fork. Those of you self-hosting might have some losses.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic

barbarr · 2 months ago

+1, the tokens from before a quantum hack will be transferred to a new fork. So at that moment, the value of BTC will go to 0 and the value of BTC v2 will take the value of BTC.

However at the moment, the community seems to be leaning towards pay-for-quantum-resistance [0]

[0] https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/pull/1670

I'm not so sure this will apply to BTC. It more or less has the staying power that it has because it hasn't changed at all, in fact pretty much everyone involved with it has resisted changing it, and it's not obvious there's anyone with enough political capital to make the fork, because anyone, right now, can make a fork of BTC and none of them have ever done well.

So what will people who self-host can or will do?

amanaplanacanal · 2 months ago

Why do you think quantum computers are going to get that good in the next couple of years? I suspect the odds of that happening are approximately zero.

Why, you ask? It is because AI won't get that good in the next couple of years so the hype people are positioning themselves for the next cycle.

Because advanacements accelerate with geometric progression, not linear one.

i80and · 2 months ago

You asked the question, but don't want to hear the answer.

Advancements are more often logarithmic than geometric: a brief flurry of progress as easy barriers are overcome, followed by a long unsexy slog of incrementalism.

Bitcoin may well be broken someday, but the time scale is on decades, which is well beyond the horizon for high-volatility markets like Bitcoin

tim333 · 2 months ago

Some do for a while like Moore's law. Many don't. Quantum computing seems kind of stuck.

cinntaile · 2 months ago

The world will have bigger fish to fry if "encryption" gets cracked around 2027-2028. I doubt it will, but anyway assuming it does then they will switch to quantum resistant encryption algorithms instead.

That doesn’t explain Bitcoin’s price. Even if what you say is true, assuming BTC gets cracked within 2-3 years, smart money would get out of it and would go into real estate, land and physical assets instead. Why isn’t this happening? I mean anyone who is able to graso exponentials and there are a LOT of people who can, will come to same realization.

Also, you can’t really switch Bitcoin to quantum-proof algo. It’s pretty much inpossible.

You could consider the price functions as a prediction market; it's telling you smart money doesn't believe it will be cracked around 2027-2028.

gethly · 2 months ago

csomar · 2 months ago

Quantum computing is as real as my $1bn bank account. It does exist, I just can't access it. There is a lot of money to be paid, however, to be doing this "research" and part of the fund raising is hyping. It does help that there is no target or goal to reach: This keeps the prospects of your funding unlimited. Quite fitting for quantum mechanics.