Google's Quantum Willow Chip "Lightyears" From Cracking Bitcoin: Expert

Benzinga12-11

KEY POINTS

  • Google's newly unveiled quantum Willow chip turns heads in the tech world.

  • An expert says the technology is still far away from breaking through Bitcoin's encryption.

Alphabet Inc‘s new “Willow” quantum computing chip has turned heads in the tech world. The chip, unveiled Monday, showed that it can do a benchmark computation in five minutes that supercomputers would take 10 septillion years to complete.

Theoretically, a powerful computer could break through Bitcoin’s encryption, a risk for the cryptocurrency. Himanshu Maradiya, the CEO of CIFDAQ, a blockchain ecosystem company, is unperturbed.

“The idea of quantum computers cracking Bitcoin is captivating, but it's still far off. Google's Willow chip, with 105 qubits, is impressive, but it's lightyears away from the millions needed to challenge Bitcoin's security,” Maradiya told Benzinga in an email.

“Think of qubits as the ‘power cores' — the more you have, the more powerful the computer. Even though Willow's qubits are groundbreaking and hold promise for addressing complex challenges, such as climate modeling and drug discovery, it's still not enough to break Bitcoin's encryption,” he added.

The executive said major obstacles remain and cryptocurrency organizations are already building security solutions to prevent such an event.

The implications of Willow go beyond cryptocurrency. Experts see its potential in revolutionizing industries like health care, where quantum computing could accelerate drug discovery and climate science, enabling more accurate environmental modeling.

As quantum computing continues to evolve, the tech and financial worlds remain on high alert, ensuring systems are prepared for the eventual rise of quantum capabilities. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will rely on innovation to maintain their resilience against technological threats.

Quantum computing stocks have seen a significant surge in the final months of 2024.

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Comments

  • ZhongRenChun
    12-11
    ZhongRenChun
    but couldn't quantum computer also be used for bitcoin mining and therefore improve the bitcoin encryption?  If it can be used to attack, it can be used to defend.
    • ZhongRenChun: 
      if a quantum computer does bitcoin mining at 1000x hash rate, then the bitcoin difficulty also increases 1000x. then the encryption strength also increases 1000x.  so you could also have the quantum computer  on the mining side doing defense.
    • ZhongRenChun: 
      breaking bitcoin is different from mining bitcoin.  breaking bitcoin is a brute force attack to guess the private key. it is not solving the puzzle.  mining bitcoin is solving the puzzle.  mining bitcoin increases the defense. and yes, bitcoin difficulty does change dynamically with the hash rate. 
    • Ah_Meng: 
      No, it can't be used for defence. Cryptocurrency is built on the premises of solving random algorithm. The faster a computer can solve will provide an unfair advantage over the rest of the miners. The algorithm has already been fixed when Bitcoin was created, so it can't be simply changed. Having said that, we still do not know if a quantum computer this powerful is stable in its daily application.
  • Danielng
    12-11
    Danielng
    Btc bull shitting his pants
    • RUW: 
      You mean “bullshit” [Happy]
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