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Quantum computing and crypto
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that deploy cryptographic functions to encrypt all financial details, ensuring the integrity and security of funds. This way, nobody other than the individuals sending and receiving crypto assets can gain access to any sensitive financial data.
It is estimated that even the latest, most powerful supercomputers would take thousands of years to decrypt crypto proofs. However, there is concern within the crypto community that quantum computers could violate crypto security within seconds.
While conventional computers use binary electrical signals to represent ones or zeros, quantum computers employ quantum bits (qubits), which are subatomic particles. Optimized qubits can simultaneously represent combinations of both ones and zeros. The more qubits there are, the greater the potential for large-scale computational power for problem-solving.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) mathematician Peter Shor developed the first well-known quantum algorithm for breaking encryption in the 1990s. There are fears that once quantum computing becomes fully realized, it could seriously disrupt the cryptocurrency infrastructure.
Quantum computers could break cryptography by 2030, Buterin warns
Miers stated that STARK or hash-based cryptographic proof implementations aren't usually zero-knowledge.
Buterin agreed with Miers about the cost of complexity. He noted that most current cryptographic use cases don't require privacy. However, the threat of quantum computing might necessitate a shift to STARK proofs for privacy reasons. Buterin also noted that STARK offers several advantages.
Miers argued that a lack of market demand would prevent any such switch. He also mentioned that quantum wouldn't necessitate a change as non-STARK post-quantum (PQ) ZK proofs like Ligero, Groth16, etc. are available. He reassured that quantum computers capable of breaking cryptography are still 50 years away.
Buterin referenced data from the online forecasting platform, Metaculus, which suggests that the median date when quantum computers will be able to break modern cryptography is 2040.
Market estimates for post-quantum crypto guided by incentives, Miers claims
Miers noted that the focus should be on the "soundness" of the proof system rather than future attackers decrypting past transactions. He observed that there is an incentive for STARK to embrace ZK since they are competing with PQ proof systems.
He also expressed that market estimates for the need for PQ crypto face an incentive issue because few experts claim that quantum computing is still years away, as the hype around it attracts funding.
Additionally, Miers highlighted that PQ upgrades to infrastructures like TLS, which secures the web, are cheap. However, implementing the same PQ upgrade to Bitcoin would entail different costs.
This article has been published in thestreet.com via Yahoo News.
