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By harnessing the energy of quantum mechanics, machines are going to have the ability to achieve data processing of speed and complexity unattainable with current computers.
Traditional computers are based on a binary version on a method of switches which could be either off or on, represented with a 1 or a 0.
Quantum computers are different in that their switches can be in either on and off positions in exactly the same period, called 'superpositions.' This ability to be in two simultaneous states is exactly what makes quantum computers quicker.
Much faster.
Google announced over a couple of years ago the quantum model they possess was 100 million times faster than any other personal computer in their lab.
To put it the other way -- from the 1990's IBM built a supercomputer called Deep Blue that defeated world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue had an advantage over Kasparov because of its ability to calculate 200 million potential chess moves per second.
A quantum machine could bring that number to 1 trillion moves per second.
The development of this technology is steaming ahead at an increasingly rapid pace. The very first marketed quantum computer was created in 2011 from the California based firm D-Wave.
D-Wave's machine was equipped with a processor that contained 16 quantum computing systems units or qubits. Ever since that time, industry leaders like IBM and Microsoft have announced their particular quantum programs. This trend will cause an exponential growing up of the number of qubits those new machines may handle over the next several years.
While computing retains the potential for fantastic improvements in many spheres and advanced solutions to some of the most complicated difficulties, it also poses a safety threat to many of our existing information systems.
Nowhere is that this danger more present than at the cryptocurrency area.
Quantum computing's effect on cryptocurrencies
One of the many goals of cryptocurrency creators was to establish a stable digital system of trade. The machine was designed to be impervious to the vulnerabilities associated with online finance, such as the hacking of internet accounts and counterfeiting payment authentication.
The brilliantly innovative blockchain system supplied the peer-reviewed international record-keeping network for this new paradigm to become a reality.
Records of all cryptocurrency trades around the world are today all saved on the blockchain, also since documents are spread out over the entire community of users, the data is inherently immune to modification.
No single piece of data can be altered with no alteration of the rest of the blocks, which might necessitate the collusion of the vast majority of the entire network.
This manner, the blockchain process is "quantum secure" in that advances in computing power will not undermine the system security.
The danger of quantum computers to cryptocurrencies lies quite in the vulnerability of individual money accounts or wallets. Quantum computers have the potential to hack the codes implemented by respective customers to authorize cryptocurrency transactions.
Here is the breakdown:
When an individual makes a trade using Bitcoin, for instance, the quantity of money being sent should refer to an unspent amount previously recorded on the blockchain system.
Users provide a private key corresponding to their cryptocurrency account or 'address'
These keys usually consist of a 64-character long mix of digits and letters. So as to use the bitcoins of another user, then a hacker would have to produce the exact key combination related to the address.
It was thought of mathematically unfeasible. Until today.
While hacking a cryptocurrency key will be almost impossible with a virtual computer, quantum computers will eventually attain this capacity during their sheer processing power.
With the abilities of quantum computers doubling every 18 months, this scenario isn't far from becoming a reality.
This is not to say there can't be stable cryptocurrencies in a planet with quantum computers. What quantum processors undermine is the current system where currencies such as Bitcoin operate.
In order to keep these monies workable, the community of consumers will need to resort to new methods of authentication for authorizing transactions on the blockchain system.
Solutions to developing these new approaches lie in the creation of quantum-safe cryptography. Many business leaders have been busy at work developing a wider variety of safety signatures that could resist quantum machine attacks.
Many of these are based on mathematical approaches discovered decades ago that are currently applied to digital encryption, including Lamport's Signature, Merkle Schemes, and Secret Sharing.
Time, however, is not on the side of cryptocurrency owners. In 2016, the US National Security Agency (NSA) produced a report on the threat of quantum computing systems to present cybersecurity infrastructure.
The research concluded that it might take "decades" earlier quantum chips introduced a real threat to public and private key-based cryptography.
However, considering the speed at which that technology has moved in the last year and a half, this looks like this estimate was way too optimistic.
Indeed, many experts are now gearing NSA's interval to significantly less than fifteen years or perhaps over the next decade.
For the time being, the very best guidance for cryptocurrency users: begin contemplating methods for hardening your personal keys using quantum resistant tools.
Cryptocurrencies may not be going away anytime soon, but the security underpinnings of the current system are.
