Timeline for Which hard mathematical problems do you have to solve to earn bitcoins ?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 13, 2013 at 17:15 | comment | added | Ben Wieland | Quantum computers are not supposed to completely break hash functions, but Grover's algorithm doubles the number of bits that you can exhaustively search through. So you could still hold a hashing competition with quantum computers, even though classical computers would no longer be viable. But, as Joël says, there is more to bitcoin than hashing and quantum computers break the rest. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm | |
| Apr 20, 2013 at 15:26 | comment | added | Joël | @Dick: I am absolutely not and expert in bitcoins or computing, but I recently asked myself this very question. According to what I have read on various forums devoted to bitcoins, it seems that bitcoin mining with the SHA-256 hash function is expected to be safe against quantum computer (that is, not to be simpler than with just a normal computer). Of course, proving this is out-of-reach. And moreover, the cryptographic methods used in bitcoins transaction (as well as in many other transactions, admittedly) is provably not safe against quantum-computing. | |
| Apr 20, 2013 at 5:19 | comment | added | Dick Palais | Is it known whether there is an algorithm using a quantum computer (i.e., qubits instead of bits) for simplifying the Bitcoin mining? | |
| Apr 20, 2013 at 4:36 | vote | accept | Chandan Singh Dalawat | ||
| Apr 20, 2013 at 3:53 | history | answered | Henry Cohn | CC BY-SA 3.0 |