1
00:00:00,529 --> 00:00:08,409
The recording now, and I see I can see myself as blue bars.

2
00:00:08,409 --> 00:00:16,689
So that's a start, and I hear Isabelle.

3
00:00:16,689 --> 00:00:19,369
So that's a pretty good start.

4
00:00:19,369 --> 00:00:20,849
This is a good start, yeah.

5
00:00:20,849 --> 00:00:22,809
Yeah, we're getting somewhere here.

6
00:00:22,809 --> 00:00:24,009
We're getting somewhere.

7
00:00:24,009 --> 00:00:34,769
Well, I suppose, you know, 22 minutes late, it could have been 25 minutes late, I suppose.

8
00:00:34,769 --> 00:00:36,009
I don't know.

9
00:00:36,009 --> 00:00:40,448
I believe that Rearden and Hunter Beast are both quite short on time.

10
00:00:40,448 --> 00:00:45,049
So as soon as Hunter Beast joins up again, I believe we should go ahead and get this thing rolling.

11
00:00:45,049 --> 00:00:50,168
Well, we should give it straight to them and let them say whatever they want to say.

12
00:00:50,168 --> 00:00:56,209
And then we'll actually have time today than I thought, so I'm good.

13
00:00:56,209 --> 00:00:58,689
Oh, perfect.

14
00:00:58,689 --> 00:01:01,128
All right, Hunter Beast.

15
00:01:01,128 --> 00:01:06,569
Whenever he finds it, we're going to have to now, OK, I'm going to tweet out the real one.

16
00:01:06,569 --> 00:01:18,689
Yeah, tweet out the new.

17
00:01:18,689 --> 00:01:26,249
Yeah, get as many people observing the space as possible so that it collapses.

18
00:01:26,249 --> 00:01:31,969
Yeah, it's always the good ones.

19
00:01:31,969 --> 00:01:40,168
The space is both working, it's being recorded and not recorded, and working and broken at the same time.

20
00:01:40,168 --> 00:01:46,849
Yeah, as Javison said, it's a quantum collapse, yeah, space rugged.

21
00:01:46,969 --> 00:01:50,209
There goes Hunter Beast in the vault over there.

22
00:01:50,209 --> 00:01:54,329
Hunter Beast up here, and thank you for joining again.

23
00:01:54,329 --> 00:01:56,768
Just to give you a quick rundown, we're doing a debate about quantum.

24
00:01:56,768 --> 00:02:00,128
On one side, we got Hunter Beast, a Bit360, as well as Javison Lopp.

25
00:02:00,128 --> 00:02:06,529
On the other side, we got Rearden and Robin Linus, both of which think that quantum isn't a threat to Bitcoin at all and is not even real.

26
00:02:06,529 --> 00:02:10,689
With that, I'll pass it over to Isabel and send up a prayer that this one goes through.

27
00:02:10,689 --> 00:02:12,168
OK, that was a great introduction.

28
00:02:12,168 --> 00:02:13,808
Thank you.

29
00:02:13,808 --> 00:02:24,208
So, yeah, I mean, I think that we should just sort of start, I think, with the five panelists that we have on stage kind of summarizing their positions.

30
00:02:24,208 --> 00:02:26,448
I think that's the appropriate place to start.

31
00:02:26,448 --> 00:02:32,008
I'd love, actually, for each of you to kind of give a rating on a scale from 1 to 10.

32
00:02:32,008 --> 00:02:36,049
How worried should Bitcoiners be about quantum computing?

33
00:02:36,049 --> 00:02:40,769
How much should we care about the potential threat of quantum computing on a scale from 1 to 10?

34
00:02:40,769 --> 00:02:46,728
And then a little summary of your position or kind of why you chose that number.

35
00:02:46,728 --> 00:02:48,168
Why don't we start with Robin?

36
00:02:54,769 --> 00:02:58,889
Sure, yeah. So.

37
00:02:58,889 --> 00:03:08,368
I guess I should start with a disclaimer, like my purpose in this debate is to steam and the arguments of the quantum skeptics with the goal of balancing the discussion.

38
00:03:08,368 --> 00:03:10,969
I'm by no means an expert in this field, not at all.

39
00:03:10,969 --> 00:03:15,329
Like, I don't know much about physics at all.

40
00:03:15,329 --> 00:03:26,849
But I think it's quite important to have this discussion in the first place, because we are having all these discussions about post-quantum cryptography and how to migrate to post-quantum cryptography.

41
00:03:26,849 --> 00:03:31,889
But we are never actually having the discussion if it is actually real or not.

42
00:03:31,889 --> 00:03:42,969
And since there's so much skepticism about the question, if quantum computing is real or will ever become real, I think it's great to have this discussion today.

43
00:03:42,969 --> 00:03:49,648
And yeah, on like regarding the rating, I think.

44
00:03:49,769 --> 00:04:00,769
After preparing for this debate, I think right now there is absolutely no reason at all to be worried about quantum cryptography or like quantum computers breaking cryptography.

45
00:04:01,568 --> 00:04:04,249
I think it's a clear zero from my end.

46
00:04:05,288 --> 00:04:06,409
Hunter, how about you, though?

47
00:04:06,409 --> 00:04:11,609
Yeah, and I'm going to re-clarify the question rating on a scale from 1 to 10.

48
00:04:11,609 --> 00:04:15,448
How much should Bitcoiners care about the threat of quantum computing?

49
00:04:15,448 --> 00:04:17,328
And you can interpret that however you like.

50
00:04:18,449 --> 00:04:20,289
Well, in the short.

51
00:04:20,289 --> 00:04:26,368
So first of all, I'm a Hunter Beast, author of 5060 and well, co-author now, right?

52
00:04:26,368 --> 00:04:29,969
And so we'll get into that in a bit.

53
00:04:29,969 --> 00:04:47,849
But I would say the in the short term, Bitcoiners don't necessarily need to care a lot, especially because there's just not a lot they can do other than just avoid taproot, which, you know, most Bitcoiners do anyway, right?

54
00:04:48,048 --> 00:04:51,569
And some scaling people, I mean, to be fair, some scaling people care about taproot.

55
00:04:52,409 --> 00:04:53,249
Yeah, yeah.

56
00:04:53,328 --> 00:04:59,228
some scaling people, I

57
00:04:59,228 --> 00:05:00,008
mean to be fair,

58
00:05:00,332 --> 00:05:01,612
scaling people care about Taproot.

59
00:05:02,872 --> 00:05:05,072
Yeah, yeah. But nobody else cares about Taproot.

60
00:05:05,692 --> 00:05:06,392
let's just be real.

61
00:05:06,872 --> 00:05:09,592
like, there's only about 150,000 coins.

62
00:05:10,312 --> 00:05:11,892
Okay, Ryendell, fine, whatever.

63
00:05:12,672 --> 00:05:17,712
There's, but still, like, like, on chain, like, there's only 150,000 coins in Taproot

64
00:05:17,712 --> 00:05:18,232
right now,

65
00:05:18,328 --> 00:05:19,628
Right, let's just be real.

66
00:05:20,288 --> 00:05:26,108
And compared to 1.7 million P2PK coins, which are probably a bigger concern,

67
00:05:27,668 --> 00:05:30,148
but regardless of that,

68
00:05:31,528 --> 00:05:33,048
just like giving you a sense of scale.

69
00:05:35,088 --> 00:05:39,568
I would say that in the short term, Taproot addresses are,

70
00:05:41,808 --> 00:05:46,788
well, in the short term, let's just say that we don't need to care too much right now.

71
00:05:46,788 --> 00:05:47,368
However,

72
00:05:49,668 --> 00:05:54,308
I think it will be a growing concern over time to the point where honest.

73
00:05:54,388 --> 00:05:57,708
to one to ten like It'll need it.

74
00:05:57,708 --> 00:05:58,948
Well, it'll be a ten.

75
00:05:59,208 --> 00:06:02,808
It'll eventually be a ten It's just one of those things where it's like it's gradually

76
00:06:02,808 --> 00:06:07,388
and then suddenly that's just my opinion Hunter just to like quickly follow up like how

77
00:06:07,388 --> 00:06:09,728
much do you think Bitcoiners should care about this now?

78
00:06:12,148 --> 00:06:12,628
Well

79
00:06:15,397 --> 00:06:15,597
should,

80
00:06:18,297 --> 00:06:18,617
not.

81
00:06:19,877 --> 00:06:25,577
zero. yeah, like it's really not like a big deal right now.

82
00:06:26,677 --> 00:06:27,217
Let's just be real.

83
00:06:27,557 --> 00:06:33,217
Can I ask, are you working on a right now if Bitcoiners should care 0 % right now?

84
00:06:33,217 --> 00:06:34,106
because

85
00:06:35,186 --> 00:06:38,066
Because it is incredibly difficult to change Bitcoin.

86
00:06:39,226 --> 00:06:40,646
also additionally,

87
00:06:41,946 --> 00:06:46,006
there's a lot of fear around, so it could take a lot of time.

88
00:06:46,086 --> 00:06:47,566
And there's a lot of fear around this problem.

89
00:06:47,706 --> 00:06:49,126
There's a lot of concern.

90
00:06:49,746 --> 00:06:52,046
We're being told by the government to be concerned, right?

91
00:06:53,206 --> 00:06:53,995
We're being warned

92
00:06:54,135 --> 00:06:59,775
essentially. as a result, I would say that

93
00:06:59,775 --> 00:07:02,715
it would make,

94
00:07:04,255 --> 00:07:07,275
it's prudent to have a plan, to be prepared.

95
00:07:11,475 --> 00:07:13,884
And as a result, that could unlock,

96
00:07:13,884 --> 00:07:19,144
unlock funds that are just like

97
00:07:19,144 --> 00:07:23,744
not going into Bitcoin and instead going into things like gold because people are,

98
00:07:23,744 --> 00:07:26,384
there are investors who are concerned.

99
00:07:27,264 --> 00:07:29,684
so we should at least have a plan.

100
00:07:29,744 --> 00:07:31,804
We should at least have like a cogent response, right?

101
00:07:31,964 --> 00:07:33,724
Like something that's not like, it'll never

102
00:07:33,773 --> 00:07:35,133
happen. That's not a plan, right?

103
00:07:36,233 --> 00:07:41,113
So we need to have at least a good answer to the question.

104
00:07:41,173 --> 00:07:41,793
That's just my opinion.

105
00:07:42,013 --> 00:07:45,133
Okay. Let's move on to Ethan, co -author of BIP360.

106
00:07:45,593 --> 00:07:49,853
How much do you think that Bitcoiners should care about the potential threat of quantum

107
00:07:49,853 --> 00:07:51,233
computing and why?

108
00:07:51,313 --> 00:07:53,493
Would you just sort of quickly summarize your position on

109
00:07:53,662 --> 00:07:53,822
this?

110
00:07:55,862 --> 00:08:01,482
So I think Bitcoiners should care, but in an optimistic

111
00:08:01,482 --> 00:08:05,982
way, because I think Bitcoin will handle this problem.

112
00:08:07,202 --> 00:08:13,182
I think that it is the way in which I view the problem is one of

113
00:08:13,182 --> 00:08:13,551
like risk

114
00:08:13,671 --> 00:08:18,971
mitigation. I don't play Russian Roulette, not because it's a one in six

115
00:08:18,971 --> 00:08:22,951
chance, but because it's a unnecessary risk.

116
00:08:24,111 --> 00:08:29,791
I think that maybe quantum computers will

117
00:08:29,791 --> 00:08:31,051
occur, maybe they won't.

118
00:08:31,271 --> 00:08:32,671
tend to think that they will.

119
00:08:33,580 --> 00:08:38,400
But if we just imagine this as like a dice roll or a coin flip, would Bitcoin be better

120
00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:44,360
off having mitigated this problem and having had solutions to this

121
00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:44,760
problem?

122
00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,100
Or would Bitcoin be better off not having attempted to mitigate the risks?

123
00:08:53,328 --> 00:08:57,708
And I'm very much in the let's mitigate the risks camp.

124
00:08:58,168 --> 00:09:04,108
Let's have an answer here so that we can assure holders that their funds are safe.

125
00:09:05,148 --> 00:09:06,428
And so that we can,

126
00:09:08,068 --> 00:09:13,448
a quantum emergency occurs, we are pre -prepared and we are not like

127
00:09:13,448 --> 00:09:17,648
doing a soft fork under intense time pressure.

128
00:09:18,808 --> 00:09:20,908
Awesome, Reardon, how about you?

129
00:09:20,988 --> 00:09:21,768
What is your take?

130
00:09:21,768 --> 00:09:27,208
how concerned are you on a scale from one to 10 about quantum computing and

131
00:09:27,208 --> 00:09:29,308
what's your sort of general position on this subject?

132
00:09:29,328 --> 00:09:29,588
subject?

133
00:09:32,608 --> 00:09:37,228
Well, I'll take a somewhat tongue -in -cheek answer and say I'm equally concerned about

134
00:09:37,228 --> 00:09:42,448
quantum computing, breaking Bitcoin's cryptographic systems, as I am about a unicorn

135
00:09:42,448 --> 00:09:45,908
farting on the planet and dissolving all computers on the planet.

136
00:09:46,388 --> 00:09:48,147
These are both things that are not going to happen,

137
00:09:53,667 --> 00:09:59,087
BIP360 fan of BIP360 as it has evolved.

138
00:09:59,087 --> 00:10:02,327
So on the one hand, don't think we should worry about quantum.

139
00:10:02,427 --> 00:10:04,427
On the other hand, do support BIP 360.

140
00:10:05,487 --> 00:10:06,787
Can I ask why?

141
00:10:07,085 --> 00:10:11,905
Why do you think that BIP360 is even worth people's time if this is literally like

142
00:10:11,905 --> 00:10:14,785
unicorn fairyland math that we're talking about?

143
00:10:16,485 --> 00:10:18,285
So I think there's a benefit.

144
00:10:18,985 --> 00:10:24,085
I'm an efficiency type of thinker and I think there's a benefit to having the option of

145
00:10:24,085 --> 00:10:25,783
pay to taproot hash, there's

146
00:10:25,903 --> 00:10:31,303
consideration of renaming BIP360 to pay to Taproot hash, is, or pay to tap script hash,

147
00:10:33,183 --> 00:10:35,203
And I think that's a good option to have out there.

148
00:10:35,563 --> 00:10:41,463
There was some discussion at Bitcoin++ in Austin a year and a half ago, where Rusty was

149
00:10:41,463 --> 00:10:44,601
really strongly like, why do we have this mandatory

150
00:10:44,881 --> 00:10:46,681
pubkey in Taproot?

151
00:10:46,841 --> 00:10:48,381
Why can't that be an optional pubkey?

152
00:10:48,801 --> 00:10:51,221
And if we have BIP360, now we have the pubkeys optional.

153
00:10:51,381 --> 00:10:55,541
can do BIP360 addresses or you can do BIP341 addresses and you can do whatever one you

154
00:10:55,541 --> 00:10:56,641
suit your needs.

155
00:10:57,041 --> 00:11:00,321
So I'm fully in support of having both of those options out there.

156
00:11:00,321 --> 00:11:03,061
I want to briefly say,

157
00:11:03,419 --> 00:11:09,159
here's the two thought proposals as to why I'm not concerned about quantum at all.

158
00:11:09,299 --> 00:11:10,519
think it's very dust.

159
00:11:11,699 --> 00:11:17,599
One to think about is humans solve many difficult problems in physics

160
00:11:17,599 --> 00:11:22,237
and elsewhere. And when we solve them, they're solved through first

161
00:11:22,477 --> 00:11:26,317
a process of prototyping and ideation and then a process of scaling.

162
00:11:26,997 --> 00:11:31,637
And we don't know whether it's possible to solve them until the prototypes work.

163
00:11:32,157 --> 00:11:36,097
And quantum computing as of right now is still in the, we don't even have the

164
00:11:36,097 --> 00:11:37,477
prototypes working phase.

165
00:11:37,757 --> 00:11:41,056
We've had many amazing prototypes, the quantum researchers out there

166
00:11:41,136 --> 00:11:42,036
build cool things.

167
00:11:42,576 --> 00:11:45,896
then when they go to try and scale them, at the first step towards scaling, they

168
00:11:45,896 --> 00:11:49,976
realize that there's still an exponential growth in the difficulty of error correction.

169
00:11:50,576 --> 00:11:56,176
So until we see a quantum computer that they can scale, there's no evidence that it's

170
00:11:56,176 --> 00:11:59,336
possible. I'm not saying that I can prove it's not possible.

171
00:11:59,456 --> 00:11:59,836
I'm saying that

172
00:11:59,874 --> 00:12:01,714
there's as of now no evidence that it is.

173
00:12:02,894 --> 00:12:07,754
then the other thing, know, quantum computing, let's say concerned folks will say, you

174
00:12:07,754 --> 00:12:12,034
know, Moore's law took us from X transistors to Y transistors so quickly.

175
00:12:12,714 --> 00:12:16,894
Isn't that gonna happen with quantum but faster because we have AI now, because we have

176
00:12:16,894 --> 00:12:18,514
whatever, it's gonna go

177
00:12:18,692 --> 00:12:22,472
faster. we haven't seen other technologies grow like Moore's law.

178
00:12:22,752 --> 00:12:25,612
Transistors are the only thing we've ever seen really grow like that.

179
00:12:26,152 --> 00:12:29,572
So again, don't see any evidence that a quantum, even when we do get it scaling, is

180
00:12:29,572 --> 00:12:32,912
going to in a similar way, exponentially like transistors did.

181
00:12:33,652 --> 00:12:37,510
So with those two roadblocks in front of us, it's still in the land of unicorn parts.

182
00:12:38,310 --> 00:12:38,970
right. Well, thank you, Root.

183
00:12:39,110 --> 00:12:43,470
And I look forward to kind of digging into the potential of some kind of breakthrough

184
00:12:43,470 --> 00:12:47,950
that could change the sort of like linear growth effect of computing into something

185
00:12:47,950 --> 00:12:53,030
more exponential. But Jamison, let's hear from you before we get into sort of like the

186
00:12:53,030 --> 00:12:54,230
more nitty gritty questions.

187
00:12:54,970 --> 00:12:56,328
Jamison, how concerned do you

188
00:12:56,328 --> 00:12:59,328
what do you think Bitcoiners should be about quantum computing

189
00:12:59,328 --> 00:13:02,328
as a threat to Bitcoin on a scale from 0 to 10,

190
00:13:02,328 --> 00:13:05,328
and what's the summary of your position,

191
00:13:05,328 --> 00:13:10,328
also as the author or co-author of a quantum mitigation BIP?

192
00:13:12,328 --> 00:13:16,328
I give it about a 7 on the existential crisis scale,

193
00:13:16,328 --> 00:13:23,328
and not necessarily because quantum is going to become a threat anytime soon,

194
00:13:23,328 --> 00:13:28,328
but rather due to my pessimism on the ability for Bitcoin as an ecosystem

195
00:13:28,328 --> 00:13:33,328
to be able to perform the consensus changes and migration

196
00:13:33,328 --> 00:13:35,328
that would be necessary

197
00:13:35,328 --> 00:13:40,328
if a cryptographically relevant quantum computer comes along,

198
00:13:40,328 --> 00:13:45,328
and that kind of resulted in the timelines

199
00:13:45,328 --> 00:13:48,328
that I came up with my Bitcoin improvement proposal,

200
00:13:48,328 --> 00:13:52,328
which really have nothing to do with post-quantum cryptography,

201
00:13:52,328 --> 00:13:57,328
and have everything to do with incentives, game theory, and migration

202
00:13:57,328 --> 00:14:02,328
that I expect would all become problems if such a threat arose,

203
00:14:02,328 --> 00:14:05,328
and this really comes down to something I've been talking about

204
00:14:05,328 --> 00:14:07,328
for a number of years now in the space,

205
00:14:07,328 --> 00:14:12,328
which is ossification and the general pushback from Bitcoiners

206
00:14:12,328 --> 00:14:17,328
to make any changes, even supposedly highly beneficial changes,

207
00:14:17,328 --> 00:14:23,328
or in this case, it would be a systemically important defensive upgrade.

208
00:14:23,328 --> 00:14:32,328
So I worry about the potential acceleration of quantum advancement.

209
00:14:32,328 --> 00:14:38,328
In short, none of us who are up here on stage are quantum physicists.

210
00:14:38,328 --> 00:14:42,328
I don't think any of us are really even cryptographers.

211
00:14:42,328 --> 00:14:44,328
I'm not a cryptographer.

212
00:14:44,328 --> 00:14:46,328
I think I saw a few people actually in the audience

213
00:14:46,328 --> 00:14:48,328
who are quantum physicists and cryptographers

214
00:14:48,328 --> 00:14:52,328
and are probably actually better suited to speak about some of these topics,

215
00:14:52,328 --> 00:14:57,328
but I would say my expertise is more on the Bitcoin ecosystem

216
00:14:57,328 --> 00:15:01,328
and game theory side, and so that is what worries me the most

217
00:15:01,328 --> 00:15:05,328
is just the difficulty in coordinating a change like this,

218
00:15:05,328 --> 00:15:08,328
because the more that I look into the problems

219
00:15:09,328 --> 00:15:14,328
around a sufficient quantum computer threat,

220
00:15:14,328 --> 00:15:18,328
the more I realize that it's not just one thing that we would have to agree upon,

221
00:15:18,328 --> 00:15:22,328
but probably like half a dozen things that we as an ecosystem

222
00:15:22,328 --> 00:15:27,328
would have to agree upon, and so it would really be unprecedented

223
00:15:27,328 --> 00:15:32,328
to be able to come to a consensus on multiple things at the same time,

224
00:15:32,328 --> 00:15:38,328
and it would be unprecedented to have to migrate people's money,

225
00:15:38,328 --> 00:15:43,328
because I think that if it is an opt-in only issue,

226
00:15:43,328 --> 00:15:48,328
then that's kind of a half-assed reply to such of a threat

227
00:15:48,328 --> 00:15:52,328
that even people who opted in would ultimately suffer significantly

228
00:15:52,328 --> 00:15:54,328
from an economic perspective,

229
00:15:54,328 --> 00:15:57,328
because there would be just such a huge liquidity event

230
00:15:57,328 --> 00:16:01,328
dumping coins back into circulation and crashing the price down.

231
00:16:01,328 --> 00:16:03,328
Yeah, so you mentioned liquidity event.

232
00:16:03,328 --> 00:16:06,328
Just for the folks who are listening who might not be as deep in the weeds

233
00:16:06,328 --> 00:16:10,328
on this problem, I think that it would be useful for us

234
00:16:10,328 --> 00:16:13,328
to kind of cover the risks on both sides, right?

235
00:16:13,328 --> 00:16:18,328
So what are the risks if the pro-mitigation people are wrong,

236
00:16:18,328 --> 00:16:21,328
and what are the risks if the quantum deniers are wrong,

237
00:16:21,328 --> 00:16:23,328
or the quantum skeptics are wrong?

238
00:16:23,328 --> 00:16:27,328
I'd love for each of you to share a little bit about

239
00:16:27,328 --> 00:16:31,328
what you see as the risks to either implementing a mitigation plan

240
00:16:31,328 --> 00:16:35,328
that maybe is mitigating fairy dust, as Reardon said,

241
00:16:35,328 --> 00:16:39,328
versus the risks of not doing anything

242
00:16:39,328 --> 00:16:43,328
and kind of just assuming that this is not going to happen,

243
00:16:43,328 --> 00:16:49,328
and what happens if that ends up being, for whatever reason,

244
00:16:49,328 --> 00:16:54,328
by some stroke of magic, not the way things turn out.

245
00:16:54,328 --> 00:16:57,328
Robin, do you want to go first, kind of talking about the risks

246
00:16:57,328 --> 00:17:00,328
of you being wrong versus your counterparty being wrong?

247
00:17:02,328 --> 00:17:04,328
Well, first of all, I'm not suggesting to do nothing.

248
00:17:04,328 --> 00:17:10,329
I'm suggesting to wait until we see that it is possible at all

249
00:17:10,329 --> 00:17:13,329
on the most tiny toy examples.

250
00:17:13,329 --> 00:17:20,329
If somebody ever makes it work to factor 15 or something,

251
00:17:20,329 --> 00:17:23,329
then we could start being concerned.

252
00:17:23,329 --> 00:17:31,329
But we are currently at the stage that the records, like 21 or something,

253
00:17:31,329 --> 00:17:35,329
even those records, which is already a ridiculous record,

254
00:17:35,329 --> 00:17:38,329
given the fact that we have seen 30 years of research

255
00:17:38,329 --> 00:17:41,329
and billions and billions of investing,

256
00:17:41,329 --> 00:17:47,329
still the record is factoring 21, and this factoring 21 is fake.

257
00:17:47,329 --> 00:17:50,329
They hard-coded half of the solution into the circuit

258
00:17:50,329 --> 00:17:53,329
because we don't have any quantum computer at all

259
00:17:53,329 --> 00:17:55,329
that could actually run Shaw's algorithm.

260
00:17:55,329 --> 00:18:01,329
It is like after 30 years of research, we are still not at the stage

261
00:18:01,329 --> 00:18:04,329
that we could say this will ever work.

262
00:18:04,329 --> 00:18:06,329
It's the exact opposite.

263
00:18:06,329 --> 00:18:09,329
We ran the fake version, and the fake version is like

264
00:18:09,329 --> 00:18:14,329
orders of magnitude slower than the most stupid classical algorithm,

265
00:18:14,329 --> 00:18:16,329
like a factor of 1,000 or something.

266
00:18:17,329 --> 00:18:20,329
It always appears as if we are at the stage that we have proven

267
00:18:20,329 --> 00:18:25,329
that this technology actually works, and now we just have to scale it.

268
00:18:25,329 --> 00:18:28,329
But that's totally not the case.

269
00:18:28,329 --> 00:18:34,329
We are far away from ever proving that this technology will ever work.

270
00:18:34,329 --> 00:18:38,329
Do you feel confident, Robin, that this will be the type of thing

271
00:18:38,329 --> 00:18:41,329
where we'll have these sort of incremental linear breakthroughs

272
00:18:41,329 --> 00:18:44,329
that will give us plenty of time to implement a plan

273
00:18:44,329 --> 00:18:46,329
if this technology does advance?

274
00:18:46,329 --> 00:18:49,329
Hunter alluded to this earlier.

275
00:18:49,329 --> 00:18:51,329
The concern, I think, about quantum, and this came up

276
00:18:51,329 --> 00:18:53,329
at the Presidio Bitcoin Quantum Summit as well,

277
00:18:53,329 --> 00:18:57,329
is that this could be a gradually-then-suddenly issue.

278
00:18:57,329 --> 00:19:01,329
There's some concern that while progress has been relatively slow,

279
00:19:01,329 --> 00:19:05,329
perhaps it only takes one incredible creative breakthrough

280
00:19:05,329 --> 00:19:10,329
to speed this along exponentially, at which point,

281
00:19:10,329 --> 00:19:14,329
will Bitcoin and its snail-like pace be able to handle

282
00:19:14,329 --> 00:19:17,329
that kind of threat in a timely fashion?

283
00:19:19,329 --> 00:19:22,329
Yeah, I think Rian mentioned that.

284
00:19:22,329 --> 00:19:29,329
The idea that Moore's Law for quantum computing would just work

285
00:19:29,329 --> 00:19:32,329
is kind of doubtful, but even if we assume that,

286
00:19:32,329 --> 00:19:36,329
which is pretty optimistic for the quantum computing people,

287
00:19:36,329 --> 00:19:41,329
then we would still have something on the order of 15 to 20 years

288
00:19:41,329 --> 00:19:48,329
from the first proof of concept until it would ever get to the point

289
00:19:48,329 --> 00:19:51,329
that it can break ECDSA.

290
00:19:51,329 --> 00:19:53,329
Why do you think that?

291
00:19:53,329 --> 00:19:56,329
Where does the 15 to 20 years number lie?

292
00:19:56,329 --> 00:20:00,329
If you assume the same growth as Moore's Law,

293
00:20:00,329 --> 00:20:02,329
and Moore's Law was like...

294
00:20:01,893 --> 00:20:13,693
exceptionally fast, we have never, as Rian mentioned, we have never seen any technology advancing as fast as the CPU speed has increased.

295
00:20:13,693 --> 00:20:27,093
And also, there was plenty of money behind that because there is a huge market for CPUs, and there is a very tiny market for quantum computers in comparison, in particular for quantum computers to break cryptography.

296
00:20:27,413 --> 00:20:54,692
And if we still assume that, then doubling the number of qubits every 18 months or something will lead from like, what would take us from nothing or from one to how many qubits do we need, like on the order of 4,000, 5,000 or something for SECP, that would take just 16 years or 16 to 20 years, depending on how efficient you can make it.

297
00:20:55,093 --> 00:20:58,852
Hunter, Ethan, or Jameson, would any of you be willing to respond to that?

298
00:20:59,573 --> 00:21:16,693
Yeah, so I think one potential flawed way of looking at this, if you're just like looking at Moore's Law, like Moore's Law fundamentally is about how many transistors you can pack into a chip, right?

299
00:21:16,772 --> 00:21:45,573
And I'm not so certain that this is just a hardware engineering problem. I mean, there are many variables at play. And once again, I'm not a quantum computing expert, but there is a hardware component, and there are three or four different types of hardware that people are exploring to develop quantum computers and qubits and trying to get qubits talking to each other.

300
00:21:46,053 --> 00:22:04,693
Fundamentally, it seems like the real challenge is scaling up these physical qubits so that they can essentially talk to each other like a network, because the more of these physical qubits that you try to connect to each other, the more noise there is, the more error correction there is.

301
00:22:04,933 --> 00:22:28,532
And so it just seems to me like this is actually more like a software problem of trying to figure out this error correction issue. And just from that sort of high level hand wavy perspective, software efficiency gains, I believe, could be far more efficient and accelerate faster than Moore's Law efficiency gains.

302
00:22:29,493 --> 00:22:34,292
Raredan, I saw you kind of poke up with your 100%. Do you have something you want to add to that?

303
00:22:34,292 --> 00:23:04,213
Yeah, I mean, the thing I would say is, I hear where James is coming from, but that sounds very much like, if the magic works, right, to say that it's a software problem is to kind of deny what we've seen, which is when quantum researchers, and you've seen this in the papers that Robin was mentioning, when they've tried to build practical sized quantum computers, they consistently see this as a software problem.

304
00:23:04,292 --> 00:23:15,973
They see that for each size, they try to go larger, they see exponentially greater difficulty in error correction. And that doesn't look like a software problem that there's like, oh, if we get the right error correction algorithm, we'll solve this.

305
00:23:15,973 --> 00:23:31,812
That looks like a physical problem that because you're dealing with quantum phenomenon, the quantum universe is fundamentally noisy. And when you try to get more pieces of quantum together, that fundamental noise grows exponentially with the size of the thing you're trying to get together.

306
00:23:31,812 --> 00:23:53,012
Now, again, I'm open to being wrong. For people that know me somewhat, you'll know that I'm always open to being wrong on these things. But we would have to see evidence of it. And that's the thing that frustrates me about this whole quantum debate is, why would we have a conversation about adding protections to Bitcoin, for something that we have no evidence will ever be a problem?

307
00:23:53,012 --> 00:24:20,292
If there is evidence, it will be a problem, then we should mitigate it. But the risks of trying to focus on this right now, are that we then don't do important work on things like say, silent payments, or ARK, or BitVM, or any of the technologies that are based on the current cryptography in Bitcoin. And I think it's too big of a risk to basically shift investment from things that we have evidence will work to mitigating a thing we don't have evidence will be a problem.

308
00:24:20,533 --> 00:24:29,213
I want to circle back to the risks associated with potentially introducing PQC into Bitcoin. So hold that thought Reardon. But in the meantime, Hunter, go ahead. And then we'll take Ethan.

309
00:24:29,933 --> 00:24:58,613
Yeah, I just want to say that the problem with like needing evidence to make a decision here, which as obviously, like, I mean, it would be really nice if we add, like, super, like, incontrovertible, controversial evidence, especially because like, like, like, Todd Dreijer, for example, introduced a way to just to verify on chain that, yes, like, you need a quantum computer to, to spend a script.

310
00:24:58,613 --> 00:25:15,172
And that would be essentially spending a script that had a shot to six of a public key, that you would then be able to spend that if you could spend that if you could sign a shot to six public key, then you you need a quantum computer for that, right.

311
00:25:15,172 --> 00:25:44,813
So that would be really cool. And we'll probably get that one day, who knows. But the problem about quantum computing is that it's not sovereign computing. It's not like computing how we're used to how we've had it in our daily lives, like quantum computing is for institutions and spooks. And just like, you know, people like things we will, like, we could probably, for the next 10 years, never run into an actual working quantum computer.

312
00:25:45,172 --> 00:26:15,172
Like, just just like in our, in our course, our daily lives, just because, like, they will be so out of the reach of ordinary people. And so, that said, we should also not heed, we should also, in my opinion, like, heed their warnings, because like, it's not like, like, the fact that they, they exist, or could exist, or they might already exist, guys, like, that's another thing is like, like, like, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's

313
00:26:15,172 --> 00:26:44,893
the US government has been working on this stuff for like, way longer than the private industry has been. And even like, like, there was a program called penetrating hard targets. Back in 2013. We learned from a from this is from a Snowden leak. This is not like this was not public information. This was just a leak leak from what the government was doing internally. Back in 2013, they were spending $80 million on

314
00:26:44,893 --> 00:27:05,893
building a quantum computer that could be cryptographically relevant. And so this, and this was this was 12 years ago. And like, so I'm just saying, like, like, there's, there's a lot of information asymmetry in this space. And as a result, that can be capitalized on by breaking Bitcoin. And I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to leave that up to chance.

315
00:27:06,653 --> 00:27:07,533
Ethan, go ahead.

316
00:27:08,493 --> 00:27:09,412
So I want to

317
00:27:12,132 --> 00:27:33,012
I should preface this by saying that, while I'm a cryptographer, I'm not a quantum cryptographer. But what I have seen with quantum cryptographers is that a few, like three years ago, they were like, you don't really need to be worried about this stuff. Scott Aronson, for example, um, but now they're saying you do need to be worried about this.

318
00:27:33,732 --> 00:27:57,412
I think that some of the breakthroughs we've had in quantum error correction, present a credible roadmap that people are, that experts who do this are very concerned about. And this is one reason why we see, you know, banks and governments, and internet browsers now a significant percentage of internet traffic is

319
00:27:57,412 --> 00:28:24,213
post quantum, because they have been convinced by the breakthroughs that we have seen. But all that being said, I want to, I want us to imagine. So I'm, I think that we will probably have a quantum computer at some point, whether it's in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 40 years, I don't really know. And I think about that as coin flips.

320
00:28:24,213 --> 00:28:46,773
But let's say, let's take the most optimistic view, and it's 40 years away. And Bitcoin does not upgrade to post quantum cryptography, while the rest of the world does, while the banks do, while other cryptocurrencies do. This presents two vulnerabilities for Bitcoin.

321
00:28:47,492 --> 00:29:13,572
The first vulnerability is that people look at Bitcoin, and they're like, well, they don't take security seriously, everyone else has mitigated this risk. And Bitcoin chose not to mitigate that risk. The second thing is that if there is something that looks like a breakthrough, that could very likely spark a panic if Bitcoin does not have a, like a ready solution.

322
00:29:14,533 --> 00:29:34,372
And the consequence of that is that it seems to me that if everyone was convinced, or like a large number of holders were convinced that a quantum computer was around the corner, they would be very concerned with the price, and miners would be very concerned with the price.

323
00:29:34,372 --> 00:29:58,853
And someone showing up with a soft fork, that's like, let's freeze all these coins, would have a very convincing case, because the miners want to be able to make money, and they need to pay their electricity bills. So there's also just this concern that if Bitcoin doesn't have a ready answer, it's more likely to produce a panic, if there is a breakthrough, or if there is even the appearance of a breakthrough.

324
00:29:59,812 --> 00:30:18,773
I think this is a key point. I believe Peter Wille actually tweeted out last week that his concern about this is more related to the fear of quantum than quantum itself, but that that fear may actually warrant taking some action just for the sake of, you know, not thwarting adoption. We'll circle back to this, but Robin, go ahead.

325
00:30:18,773 --> 00:30:48,692
Yeah, thanks. So I want to stretch again that quantum computers don't exist at all. Like, it's not, they are not existent. We cannot even factor the number 15 without hand wiring half of the answer into the circuit. And quantum error correction does not translate into any practical results yet. It's not that these advancements in quantum error correction changed anything about the fact that we cannot factor 15.

326
00:30:49,252 --> 00:31:06,213
We have never seen any quantum speed up at all. And assuming that it would be maybe 40 years away is still like a completely wide guess, assuming that it could work, even though we don't have any evidence for that being the case.

327
00:31:07,893 --> 00:31:12,373
It's assuming like what if somebody comes who has magic abilities?

328
00:31:12,793 --> 00:31:15,793
if in 40 years somebody comes who has magic abilities?

329
00:31:16,513 --> 00:31:22,393
And it becomes a bit absurd if we start assuming these things because why don't

330
00:31:22,393 --> 00:31:26,206
we prepare for someone breaking ECDSA using classical crypto analysis

331
00:31:26,486 --> 00:31:31,526
for example. The probability is non -zero that somebody is actually capable of doing

332
00:31:31,526 --> 00:31:36,826
that. It's only how all this ECDSA, all the elliptic curves 40 years or something,

333
00:31:38,266 --> 00:31:42,666
maybe someone finds something that allows them to break

334
00:31:42,666 --> 00:31:46,066
ECDSA just like

335
00:31:46,218 --> 00:31:47,578
as if would be nothing.

336
00:31:48,398 --> 00:31:50,938
why don't we prepare for like more crazy things?

337
00:31:51,038 --> 00:31:55,258
Why don't we prepare for alien invasions that might use telekinesis to read our minds

338
00:31:55,258 --> 00:31:57,938
or something? Because it's absurd, you know?

339
00:31:58,618 --> 00:32:03,858
And the more we allow to like assume absurd things

340
00:32:03,858 --> 00:32:06,190
in our threat model, the more

341
00:32:06,190 --> 00:32:09,070
absurd the entire mitigation becomes.

342
00:32:09,950 --> 00:32:15,930
I think it's still the best way to just wait until this

343
00:32:15,930 --> 00:32:19,690
technology has been proven, at least like in theory, at least like in a toy model,

344
00:32:20,170 --> 00:32:24,090
because currently we don't have any proof at all that it will ever work at all.

345
00:32:24,090 --> 00:32:26,182
And the other thing regarding

346
00:32:26,182 --> 00:32:32,082
different threat model because they are assuming

347
00:32:32,082 --> 00:32:35,002
the harvest now decrypt later threat model.

348
00:32:35,342 --> 00:32:41,282
they are concerned that stuff that they encrypt today might be harvested and

349
00:32:41,282 --> 00:32:43,442
then decrypted in like 50 years or something.

350
00:32:43,602 --> 00:32:45,802
And then it could become a problem for them.

351
00:32:46,314 --> 00:32:48,754
This threat model does not apply at all to Bitcoin.

352
00:32:49,374 --> 00:32:50,594
We don't have that.

353
00:32:50,794 --> 00:32:52,734
is just, it's for secret data.

354
00:32:52,834 --> 00:32:54,754
It's not for signatures.

355
00:32:57,354 --> 00:33:02,394
And I think no serious research at all is assuming that

356
00:33:02,394 --> 00:33:06,166
quantum computers breaking cryptography would just

357
00:33:06,206 --> 00:33:09,906
happen suddenly without any prior progress and any theoretical breakthroughs or

358
00:33:09,906 --> 00:33:14,886
something. It would certainly not happen from one day to another that suddenly someone

359
00:33:14,886 --> 00:33:20,586
has a mega -quantum computer out of nowhere and that would even break Bitcoin.

360
00:33:20,746 --> 00:33:26,158
Because that's another thing that people talk about quantum computers as if you have

361
00:33:26,178 --> 00:33:27,658
like a general quantum computer.

362
00:33:27,678 --> 00:33:30,218
And once you have that, then you can break Bitcoin.

363
00:33:30,358 --> 00:33:31,178
But that's not true.

364
00:33:31,378 --> 00:33:35,638
you would have to invest billions and billions of dollars into a very specific quantum

365
00:33:35,638 --> 00:33:38,418
computer that is only designed to break Bitcoin keys.

366
00:33:39,158 --> 00:33:42,918
And then you would have to pull off that attack like in stealth.

367
00:33:43,078 --> 00:33:46,150
You have to do it very slowly such that you don't

368
00:33:46,150 --> 00:33:51,470
create too much noise because people would notice that all these

369
00:33:51,470 --> 00:33:53,330
coins are moving suddenly.

370
00:33:54,050 --> 00:33:59,150
And if people would notice and migrate suddenly, then your billions of dollars of

371
00:33:59,150 --> 00:34:01,430
investment in quantum computers would be gone.

372
00:34:01,570 --> 00:34:02,710
It would be completely worthless.

373
00:34:02,830 --> 00:34:06,142
It's not that you can use that quantum computer for medical

374
00:34:06,762 --> 00:34:07,782
research or something.

375
00:34:07,942 --> 00:34:11,782
is just hardwired to break Bitcoin and Bitcoin only.

376
00:34:12,422 --> 00:34:16,762
even assuming that attack, even the economics of that attack don't really make sense.

377
00:34:19,162 --> 00:34:25,122
And since there's so many steps that just make it very unrealistic that this ever

378
00:34:25,122 --> 00:34:26,062
will happen. think

379
00:34:26,134 --> 00:34:29,734
it just doesn't make sense to

380
00:34:29,734 --> 00:34:35,654
fuel that fear because as people said, it's mostly a fear -based

381
00:34:35,654 --> 00:34:41,214
discussion. It's not that we are seeing all these hard evidence or something that would

382
00:34:41,214 --> 00:34:43,714
actually justify being concerned.

383
00:34:43,834 --> 00:34:44,674
It's the other way around.

384
00:34:45,354 --> 00:34:46,127
There evidence

385
00:34:46,267 --> 00:34:48,847
that it probably will never work at all.

386
00:34:49,127 --> 00:34:52,967
But there's all these companies that are creating these fears because they are living,

387
00:34:53,287 --> 00:34:55,547
they need billions of dollars to do their research.

388
00:34:55,867 --> 00:35:01,547
So they have to create narratives and justifications for these

389
00:35:01,547 --> 00:35:05,567
astronomical evaluations, sorry, evaluations,

390
00:35:07,259 --> 00:35:12,839
And then, know,

391
00:35:17,679 --> 00:35:23,579
you can it a lot of it with

392
00:35:23,579 --> 00:35:26,059
with do it then,

393
00:35:26,111 --> 00:35:31,871
peer investors and not amplify these

394
00:35:31,871 --> 00:35:36,151
assumptions that it will suddenly become a thing in five years or something because

395
00:35:36,151 --> 00:35:38,011
that is what scares investors.

396
00:35:38,371 --> 00:35:42,211
If we would just steer the discussion into the

397
00:35:42,211 --> 00:35:45,911
pound -and -impact direction,

398
00:35:46,103 --> 00:35:51,863
then we could probably take the fear from these investors and help them to...

399
00:35:51,863 --> 00:35:57,623
We're going to circle back also to why investors are pouring billions of dollars into

400
00:35:57,623 --> 00:36:00,603
this technology if it's us, yeah, Ethan, go ahead.

401
00:36:00,703 --> 00:36:01,763
mean, Bitcoin investors...

402
00:36:02,163 --> 00:36:03,143
invest in together.

403
00:36:03,663 --> 00:36:05,323
As well, as separately.

404
00:36:08,335 --> 00:36:12,215
I mean, one and one, one, one, one, one, and and

405
00:36:12,215 --> 00:36:17,155
this one, and this one, and this

406
00:36:17,895 --> 00:36:19,355
and this and this one,

407
00:36:19,355 --> 00:36:24,015
this

408
00:36:25,675 --> 00:36:26,087
and

409
00:36:27,127 --> 00:36:32,507
work. We have already achieved quantum supremacy in that there are quantum computers on

410
00:36:32,507 --> 00:36:38,307
like random circuit sampling that are better than classical computers, like better than

411
00:36:38,307 --> 00:36:41,547
those to verify the results of a recent Nature paper.

412
00:36:42,067 --> 00:36:46,047
They required, I think it was like several months of the top four US

413
00:36:46,079 --> 00:36:51,179
supercomputers to verify a result, a random graph sampling result from a quantum

414
00:36:51,179 --> 00:36:55,479
computer. So we are seeing quantum computers be used in these ways.

415
00:36:55,619 --> 00:37:00,879
We're just not seeing, Shor's algorithm is not the first immediate use that we will see

416
00:37:00,879 --> 00:37:06,071
for it. But quantum computers are being used for

417
00:37:06,531 --> 00:37:09,291
cryptography problems, random graph sampling.

418
00:37:11,711 --> 00:37:12,911
I think that we should take this.

419
00:37:13,311 --> 00:37:14,231
isn't a risk.

420
00:37:14,731 --> 00:37:15,911
It's a great But there's risks.

421
00:37:16,791 --> 00:37:21,411
What? I think the random circuit sampling is a great example for the

422
00:37:21,411 --> 00:37:24,751
stage of where we are at.

423
00:37:25,011 --> 00:37:26,063
Because random

424
00:37:26,583 --> 00:37:32,383
circuit sampling is completely like, it was used to justify the term

425
00:37:32,383 --> 00:37:37,463
quantum supremacy, but when you think of quantum supremacy, you think about that magic

426
00:37:37,463 --> 00:37:42,343
that quantum computers are promising, which is they can break cryptography or they can

427
00:37:42,343 --> 00:37:45,883
do computations exponentially faster than we can do them

428
00:37:46,056 --> 00:37:49,836
classically. like useful computation that matter.

429
00:37:50,436 --> 00:37:52,696
is what we actually think of.

430
00:37:52,996 --> 00:37:56,956
has useful cryptographic applications.

431
00:37:57,216 --> 00:37:58,836
is completely useless computation, right?

432
00:37:58,956 --> 00:38:02,156
It's like an artificial problem that is made up.

433
00:38:02,676 --> 00:38:06,048
Just justify like progress, where

434
00:38:06,168 --> 00:38:07,968
there is actually no real progress.

435
00:38:08,388 --> 00:38:11,048
We don't have any quantum supremacy at all.

436
00:38:11,608 --> 00:38:15,488
Let's finish your point and then we'll go back to

437
00:38:16,948 --> 00:38:22,728
the recent Nature paper that built a crypto system out of

438
00:38:22,728 --> 00:38:25,948
random graph sampling, it's not useless computation

439
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:31,420
And it does show quantum computers significantly beating classical computers.

440
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:32,840
Actually, Ethan,

441
00:38:34,460 --> 00:38:40,060
could I ask you specify exactly which nature paper you are referring

442
00:38:40,060 --> 00:38:41,940
to? OK.

443
00:38:43,240 --> 00:38:46,032
have a Google, but I can look at the boundaries of

444
00:38:46,152 --> 00:38:49,392
quantum supremacy by random circuit sampling, 2023.

445
00:38:49,492 --> 00:38:52,332
that sounded like it or no?

446
00:38:52,372 --> 00:38:56,012
No, it came out in I think 2025.

447
00:38:57,432 --> 00:39:00,372
The author was at the DCI the other day.

448
00:39:01,892 --> 00:39:02,812
Yeah, let me me look it up.

449
00:39:02,952 --> 00:39:03,692
I'll come back to that.

450
00:39:03,792 --> 00:39:06,024
But like, we have demonstrated quantum

451
00:39:06,104 --> 00:39:10,244
supremacy, which is a pretty big point to have crossed.

452
00:39:11,144 --> 00:39:17,084
while we can argue that like even if quantum computers and Shor's algorithm never

453
00:39:17,084 --> 00:39:22,224
happens, Bitcoin should try to mitigate that risk.

454
00:39:22,984 --> 00:39:26,016
I do think that there is a

455
00:39:26,496 --> 00:39:28,736
significant chance that this will happen.

456
00:39:28,856 --> 00:39:33,996
And we're seeing not just the government with the concern about the store and break

457
00:39:33,996 --> 00:39:38,596
later attacks, but like banking standards and banking APIs are now moving to post

458
00:39:38,596 --> 00:39:44,136
-quantum. This is like a very real thing that a number of industries are taking

459
00:39:44,136 --> 00:39:45,476
extremely seriously,

460
00:39:46,188 --> 00:39:47,628
including other cryptocurrencies.

461
00:39:48,368 --> 00:39:53,648
And if Bitcoin falls behind on this, there will always be this fear that

462
00:39:53,648 --> 00:39:55,868
Bitcoin will be broken.

463
00:39:56,128 --> 00:39:58,028
And that fear is not an absurd fear.

464
00:39:58,068 --> 00:40:03,828
That is a real fear that lines up with a lot of changes in how experts are now more

465
00:40:03,828 --> 00:40:05,128
concerned about quantum computers,

466
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:08,840
So,

467
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:14,240
I'm not sure if that's a strong argument because other cryptocurrencies are also

468
00:40:14,240 --> 00:40:19,980
concerned about boiling the oceans, they are migrating to proof of stake and stuff like

469
00:40:19,980 --> 00:40:24,700
that. So I'm not sure if that is really the bar that we want to hit.

470
00:40:26,492 --> 00:40:29,072
But back to the actual argument of quantum supremacy.

471
00:40:29,372 --> 00:40:34,592
I think it's a marketing buzzword, because it suggests to people who don't really

472
00:40:34,592 --> 00:40:40,172
understand what random circuit sampling is, that quantum computers actually achieve

473
00:40:40,172 --> 00:40:44,152
this kind of magic that everybody is talking about, or that justifies the entire

474
00:40:44,152 --> 00:40:45,832
industry. The

475
00:40:45,984 --> 00:40:51,684
entire industry is justified by that assumption that we can actually break cryptography

476
00:40:51,684 --> 00:40:54,384
or do like magical kinds of computing.

477
00:40:55,304 --> 00:41:01,224
sure, like we have these random circuit sampling things but for the things that

478
00:41:01,224 --> 00:41:05,977
actually matter like categorization or breaking ECC or stuff like that,

479
00:41:07,077 --> 00:41:11,437
we haven't even, we aren't in on par with classical computing.

480
00:41:11,897 --> 00:41:15,757
are thousands, like a factor of thousands off

481
00:41:17,187 --> 00:41:18,137
when we are cheating.

482
00:41:18,657 --> 00:41:21,277
I just posted the maker article.

483
00:41:21,577 --> 00:41:25,457
We are far away from quantum supremacy, orders of far away from

484
00:41:26,369 --> 00:41:27,769
real quantum supremacy.

485
00:41:28,229 --> 00:41:32,469
There's only that buzzword floating around where we have achieved quantum supremacy on

486
00:41:32,469 --> 00:41:37,129
a very artificial problem that is very irrelevant for the things that we're actually

487
00:41:37,129 --> 00:41:42,989
talking about. Robin, in your defense, and Reardon also alluded to this, can you just

488
00:41:42,989 --> 00:41:45,961
share a little bit about what you think the risks of,

489
00:41:46,181 --> 00:41:51,661
implementing some kind of mitigation strategy would be because I think many folks on

490
00:41:51,661 --> 00:41:57,041
the pro -mitigation side take the position that it's better to be prepared

491
00:41:57,041 --> 00:42:02,761
in the utmost of caution given the potentially very extreme

492
00:42:02,761 --> 00:42:05,953
risks associated with a cryptographically relevant quantum

493
00:42:06,093 --> 00:42:07,653
computer popping onto the scene.

494
00:42:08,733 --> 00:42:11,853
Would you mind explaining a little bit of your position there?

495
00:42:12,013 --> 00:42:17,813
Why not just be prepared for the hell of it, given the fact that the risks on the other

496
00:42:17,813 --> 00:42:22,593
side of this seem so or potentially existentially fatal for Bitcoin?

497
00:42:25,093 --> 00:42:25,945
Yeah, best part of

498
00:42:25,945 --> 00:42:28,145
why not prepare for alien invasions?

499
00:42:29,645 --> 00:42:35,365
But I think to be more concrete, we can talk about the really concrete risks.

500
00:42:35,585 --> 00:42:41,205
And there was some discussion of that on the original version of BIP360, which I wasn't

501
00:42:41,205 --> 00:42:43,705
supportive of, the new version I am supportive of.

502
00:42:43,705 --> 00:42:45,705
If we

503
00:42:45,937 --> 00:42:51,337
add into Bitcoin new additional cryptographic algorithms

504
00:42:51,337 --> 00:42:56,557
that introduces additional risk surface to Bitcoin itself, both in the code, in the

505
00:42:56,557 --> 00:43:00,497
implementation, and also in the crypto systems, One of the great things and the reasons

506
00:43:00,497 --> 00:43:04,837
that it was very tractable to bring Taproot to Bitcoin is that Taproot relied on

507
00:43:04,837 --> 00:43:05,929
actually a reduced set

508
00:43:05,929 --> 00:43:08,329
-quantum I'm a

509
00:43:08,329 --> 00:43:14,329
crypto -cryptographer.

510
00:43:15,069 --> 00:43:16,369
I'm a crypto -quantum -cryptographer.

511
00:43:16,749 --> 00:43:17,729
not not a crypto -cryptographer.

512
00:43:18,209 --> 00:43:24,029
I'm I'm a crypto I'm not I'm a crypto -quantum

513
00:43:24,029 --> 00:43:24,909
-cryptographer.

514
00:43:26,281 --> 00:43:31,341
either have to accept a dramatically reduced number of transactions or payments

515
00:43:31,341 --> 00:43:36,001
makeable on Bitcoin in order to get them, or we have to add additional extension block

516
00:43:36,001 --> 00:43:38,901
space of some sort to hold those keys and signatures.

517
00:43:39,901 --> 00:43:45,061
that, we know historically that Bitcoiners are not willing to take much larger blocks

518
00:43:45,061 --> 00:43:45,721
for a lot of good

519
00:43:45,913 --> 00:43:49,653
reasons and also much higher verification costs for nodes.

520
00:43:50,553 --> 00:43:51,313
So what do we do there?

521
00:43:51,433 --> 00:43:54,613
that's one big risk is the size of these things right now.

522
00:43:56,473 --> 00:43:57,893
then I just covered the two.

523
00:43:58,153 --> 00:44:00,253
So the risk of the code itself and then the risk of the size.

524
00:44:01,173 --> 00:44:05,253
and then Hunter and James, and I'd also love to hear from you again on the potential

525
00:44:05,253 --> 00:44:05,693
risks

526
00:44:10,466 --> 00:44:16,266
So, how can we get the

527
00:44:16,266 --> 00:44:21,946
additional risk mitigation of post -quantum cryptography in Bitcoin without the

528
00:44:21,946 --> 00:44:23,046
drawbacks that you mentioned?

529
00:44:23,046 --> 00:44:25,746
And if you put, say, like,

530
00:44:26,518 --> 00:44:32,098
post -quantum cryptography in a tap leaf, and then you just continue using Schnorr along

531
00:44:32,098 --> 00:44:37,978
with that, you don't have any the size concerns or the security

532
00:44:37,978 --> 00:44:42,198
concerns until the point at which you actually want to use it.

533
00:44:42,958 --> 00:44:45,890
So I think that you can kind of square the circle on this

534
00:44:45,970 --> 00:44:51,890
and get the protection without necessarily the cost.

535
00:44:53,930 --> 00:44:58,010
Yeah, exactly. mean, in my post that's in the NASTAP here that LayerTwo Labs put up

536
00:44:58,010 --> 00:44:59,130
there, it says exactly that.

537
00:44:59,210 --> 00:45:03,990
Like I support Bit360, I support an optional Tapleaf based post quantum

538
00:45:03,990 --> 00:45:05,882
algorithm for those who are

539
00:45:05,942 --> 00:45:11,042
concerned, because then we can basically say in good faith, if quantum happens, can

540
00:45:11,042 --> 00:45:16,522
quickly disable elliptic curve -based key spans and those who prepare to themselves

541
00:45:16,522 --> 00:45:18,302
using this technique are protected.

542
00:45:18,742 --> 00:45:21,462
I wouldn't bother protecting myself, but anybody who wants to can, and that's great.

543
00:45:22,522 --> 00:45:25,162
Hunter, Jameson, do you have any other thoughts on this?

544
00:45:27,934 --> 00:45:33,314
Just that Ethan has been working on that problem, not only from the perspective

545
00:45:33,314 --> 00:45:39,194
of having the choice between either

546
00:45:39,194 --> 00:45:42,574
post -chlorography or elliptic group photography, but also we've been working on

547
00:45:42,574 --> 00:45:45,634
something called Bitzip, which is essentially

548
00:45:45,866 --> 00:45:49,606
-wide cross -transaction compression

549
00:45:49,606 --> 00:45:52,246
upgrade.

550
00:45:54,506 --> 00:45:59,426
It would help scale post photography.

551
00:46:01,086 --> 00:46:01,966
James, any thoughts?

552
00:46:03,686 --> 00:46:05,858
Yeah, mean, I

553
00:46:05,878 --> 00:46:11,838
had a whole slide about how I felt that there's

554
00:46:11,838 --> 00:46:17,318
kind of a quantum entanglement, if you will, pun intended,

555
00:46:17,518 --> 00:46:22,658
of all of the issues that are overlapping in this case.

556
00:46:22,838 --> 00:46:25,758
so one is the fact that all post

557
00:46:25,890 --> 00:46:31,330
-quantum cryptographic schemes suck in the context of Bitcoin's resource constraints.

558
00:46:32,170 --> 00:46:37,510
We would prefer not to reignite the block size debate unless you're me.

559
00:46:38,070 --> 00:46:43,790
you know, I've already kind of done that talking about the dynamic block size ideas

560
00:46:43,790 --> 00:46:45,842
as a long term strategy for

561
00:46:45,962 --> 00:46:48,762
a number of different things and scalability.

562
00:46:49,662 --> 00:46:55,002
There's multiple inviolable properties of the protocol that are actually in conflict

563
00:46:55,002 --> 00:46:59,522
and that you know we end up going down this road, whether we do something or do nothing

564
00:46:59,522 --> 00:47:04,902
there will likely be people who are upset about these properties being

565
00:47:04,902 --> 00:47:05,542
violated.

566
00:47:05,834 --> 00:47:10,734
there's the issue that my improvement proposal talks about, which

567
00:47:10,734 --> 00:47:15,614
is this kind of concepts that some could call

568
00:47:15,614 --> 00:47:19,154
confiscation or forced migration.

569
00:47:19,794 --> 00:47:25,094
then if you have more of a defensive perspective, you might call it enforced security

570
00:47:25,094 --> 00:47:25,814
upgrades

571
00:47:25,827 --> 00:47:31,427
or enforcing and incentivizing security improvements.

572
00:47:33,067 --> 00:47:38,847
There's also this issue of, well, Bitcoiners and as an ecosystem,

573
00:47:39,927 --> 00:47:45,819
we should display strength through stoicism and simply allow bad

574
00:47:45,819 --> 00:47:51,619
bad actors who achieve certain powers to be able to manipulate the protocol because

575
00:47:51,619 --> 00:47:56,679
they're just following the rules versus a more proactive approach of saying, well,

576
00:47:57,299 --> 00:48:02,679
we know that this may become a problem and we know that we can work on trying to get

577
00:48:02,679 --> 00:48:05,559
solutions in place in the

578
00:48:09,511 --> 00:48:15,451
There's also the issue of viewing 1

579
00:48:15,451 --> 00:48:21,431
BTC equals 1 BTC and Bitcoin is the unit of account and that's all that matters versus

580
00:48:21,431 --> 00:48:25,803
the alternative viewpoint that Bitcoin

581
00:48:25,803 --> 00:48:30,523
Bitcoin is simply not a unit of account for most individuals and businesses and there

582
00:48:30,523 --> 00:48:36,463
would be actual destruction of spending power and economic volatility

583
00:48:36,463 --> 00:48:39,683
that would have negative ripple effects across the ecosystem.

584
00:48:40,843 --> 00:48:45,795
There's game theory ultimately, with regard to

585
00:48:45,995 --> 00:48:51,095
selling your coins in certain situations or being in favor

586
00:48:51,095 --> 00:48:55,435
of forced migration or confiscation of quantum vulnerable coins.

587
00:48:55,595 --> 00:49:01,515
And I think the game theory effectively plays out such that it ends up being what

588
00:49:01,515 --> 00:49:05,787
you could call a game of whales versus guppies, where the whales

589
00:49:05,907 --> 00:49:11,907
who have the vast majority of their savings, their treasuries, what have you,

590
00:49:12,447 --> 00:49:17,727
in Bitcoin would probably prefer to eliminate

591
00:49:17,727 --> 00:49:23,487
having large amounts of quantum vulnerable coins that could be liquidated, versus the

592
00:49:23,487 --> 00:49:25,767
guppies or the people who are still accumulating.

593
00:49:26,139 --> 00:49:29,839
Bitcoin would probably love to see the price crash so that they could buy the dip and

594
00:49:29,839 --> 00:49:31,839
become a whole coin or so on and so forth.

595
00:49:32,939 --> 00:49:37,739
And then there's just wealth redistribution dilemmas all over the place.

596
00:49:38,579 --> 00:49:43,899
Whether we're talking about freezing or burning

597
00:49:43,899 --> 00:49:45,771
or like an hourglass

598
00:49:46,131 --> 00:49:51,011
spending volume throughput proposal, what have you.

599
00:49:51,651 --> 00:49:57,271
And then finally, there is the game theory around doing all of these proposed

600
00:49:57,271 --> 00:50:01,631
changes, which are pretty much all soft fork changes, but they could

601
00:50:01,631 --> 00:50:05,431
ultimately be highly controversial soft forks.

602
00:50:05,431 --> 00:50:05,763
and

603
00:50:05,763 --> 00:50:11,703
and then the way to reject or resist a controversial soft fork, there is game

604
00:50:11,703 --> 00:50:16,163
theory around that, but it's never actually played out in reality.

605
00:50:16,803 --> 00:50:19,223
it could get very interesting.

606
00:50:20,443 --> 00:50:21,863
Okay, Robin, go ahead.

607
00:50:22,923 --> 00:50:25,303
Isabel, think maybe if you,

608
00:50:26,216 --> 00:50:30,996
sometimes when Jameson speaks, I get the blue dots on your name and his quality

609
00:50:30,996 --> 00:50:36,216
goes down. So I don't know if maybe you could mute if he

610
00:50:36,216 --> 00:50:40,636
is talking. don't know if that will help or maybe it will not make any difference to

611
00:50:40,636 --> 00:50:42,736
anyone else. I'm the only one experiencing it.

612
00:50:42,836 --> 00:50:44,016
don't know. Sure, will do.

613
00:50:44,216 --> 00:50:45,436
Robin, do you want to go ahead?

614
00:50:45,748 --> 00:50:47,348
then I just let up Martin on stage.

615
00:50:47,548 --> 00:50:50,268
hear you're trying to raise money to break Bitcoin.

616
00:50:50,388 --> 00:50:51,648
So we'd love to hear from you as well.

617
00:50:51,768 --> 00:50:52,728
But Robin, go ahead first.

618
00:50:53,708 --> 00:50:58,208
I wanted to talk a bit about the risks of mitigating,

619
00:50:59,608 --> 00:51:02,288
of migrating before it's an issue.

620
00:51:03,388 --> 00:51:05,728
The first thing is, of course, fixing problems

621
00:51:05,740 --> 00:51:08,060
that aren't real takes resources from real problems.

622
00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:11,420
We have all these conferences and on -conferences.

623
00:51:12,300 --> 00:51:13,500
People are talking about it.

624
00:51:13,500 --> 00:51:19,300
It just takes mindshare of problems that might be actually relevant and might make a

625
00:51:19,300 --> 00:51:19,660
difference.

626
00:51:20,980 --> 00:51:24,960
the other thing is that preparing too early is also a risk in itself because

627
00:51:26,152 --> 00:51:28,992
quantum schemes are not matured yet at all.

628
00:51:29,212 --> 00:51:31,832
essentially, we have two kinds of schemes.

629
00:51:31,992 --> 00:51:37,692
We have very large hash -based schemes, and we have other schemes that are based on

630
00:51:37,692 --> 00:51:42,632
lattice cryptography. And we are not even sure if these lattice cryptography things are

631
00:51:42,632 --> 00:51:44,032
actually quantum resistant.

632
00:51:44,632 --> 00:51:45,724
There was a paper claiming

633
00:51:45,964 --> 00:51:47,684
to break them.

634
00:51:48,564 --> 00:51:51,164
But then somebody found a bug in the paper.

635
00:51:51,164 --> 00:51:56,464
But there still a lot of rumors in the community that people might be able to fix that

636
00:51:56,464 --> 00:52:01,924
bug and then actually break all kinds of lattice -based

637
00:52:01,924 --> 00:52:05,716
cryptography with quantum computers, if

638
00:52:05,856 --> 00:52:11,776
for the utmost of clarity, do you think is the biggest risk with

639
00:52:11,776 --> 00:52:14,076
introducing PQC into Bitcoin?

640
00:52:16,076 --> 00:52:17,616
worst case scenario?

641
00:52:20,076 --> 00:52:23,956
think, as I said, think it takes away my share from real problems.

642
00:52:23,956 --> 00:52:25,676
I think it might

643
00:52:25,708 --> 00:52:26,388
be,

644
00:52:27,668 --> 00:52:33,308
we don't have the cryptography yet to actually make a good decision what kind of scheme

645
00:52:33,308 --> 00:52:34,728
we would like to use.

646
00:52:35,808 --> 00:52:41,428
And I think also that putting that much focus on this topic fuels the quantum

647
00:52:41,428 --> 00:52:45,568
panic amongst Bitcoin investors, because that is actually a real thing that

648
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:50,500
Bitcoin investors, panic about, like, what would happen if tomorrow a quantum computer

649
00:52:50,500 --> 00:52:53,360
comes up, even though that this is not a rational fear.

650
00:52:53,980 --> 00:52:55,900
It's panic. It's paranoia.

651
00:52:57,000 --> 00:53:02,860
And kind of investment fear seems like a very horrible idea, because it can be

652
00:53:02,860 --> 00:53:05,560
all kinds of irrational fears that we could design for.

653
00:53:05,692 --> 00:53:07,952
and we should do the opposite.

654
00:53:08,192 --> 00:53:13,272
should calm down investors by making arguments grounded in real world evidence.

655
00:53:13,892 --> 00:53:17,272
Do you have any concerns about that approach?

656
00:53:17,732 --> 00:53:22,552
like silencing conversations, even in a scenario where maybe there are breakthroughs

657
00:53:22,552 --> 00:53:25,684
and quantum computers do advance and we do get farther down the

658
00:53:25,804 --> 00:53:31,764
line. know, that culturally an appropriate attitude to have that we should be

659
00:53:31,764 --> 00:53:33,764
of, you know, quiet about these conversations?

660
00:53:34,004 --> 00:53:35,824
mean, do you have any concerns about that?

661
00:53:36,284 --> 00:53:42,224
I mean, sure, should totally like watch the

662
00:53:42,224 --> 00:53:45,604
progress. And once there happens something

663
00:53:45,677 --> 00:53:50,837
in that space, for example, somebody would actually run Szor's algorithm and would

664
00:53:50,837 --> 00:53:53,497
factor 21 without any kinds of crutches.

665
00:53:54,297 --> 00:53:55,697
That would be concerning.

666
00:53:56,217 --> 00:54:02,197
Then we would actually might run into that exponential race that within the next

667
00:54:02,197 --> 00:54:03,637
15 years, it becomes a reality.

668
00:54:03,977 --> 00:54:05,669
And then we should definitely prepare for

669
00:54:05,749 --> 00:54:11,429
that. until we are in that stage where it's absolutely not real at all, it's all like

670
00:54:11,429 --> 00:54:16,929
promises to investors and sales pitches, we should not engage in that

671
00:54:16,929 --> 00:54:22,549
unreal discussion. We should ground the discussion in the actual reality of quantum

672
00:54:22,549 --> 00:54:24,429
computers not being real at all.

673
00:54:25,169 --> 00:54:25,661
Ethan, do you want

674
00:54:28,821 --> 00:54:34,521
I think that's

675
00:54:34,521 --> 00:54:43,341
a

676
00:54:43,341 --> 00:54:44,981
good question. I question.

677
00:54:44,981 --> 00:54:45,081
question. question.

678
00:54:45,673 --> 00:54:50,773
are far more concerned about this, that have changed their opinions over time.

679
00:54:51,653 --> 00:54:56,693
But I really want to go back to something that he said earlier, which is that,

680
00:54:57,193 --> 00:55:00,013
like, what if ECDSA gets broken?

681
00:55:00,493 --> 00:55:02,953
Or what if one of these quantum algorithms gets broken?

682
00:55:02,953 --> 00:55:05,553
I think that if our goal is to

683
00:55:05,645 --> 00:55:11,585
have the ability to store Bitcoin in a coffee can in your yard for 100 years and dig

684
00:55:11,585 --> 00:55:17,405
it up and still have it be secure, we need more than one signature algorithm in Bitcoin

685
00:55:17,405 --> 00:55:21,045
because on those sorts of timescales, signature algorithms are broken, quantum

686
00:55:21,045 --> 00:55:21,845
computers are not.

687
00:55:21,845 --> 00:55:25,445
And so I would argue that hash -based

688
00:55:25,637 --> 00:55:31,317
cryptography like Sphinx, which is also post -quantum, would give us, would give

689
00:55:31,317 --> 00:55:36,657
Bitcoin far more long -term security and would allow us to transition

690
00:55:37,677 --> 00:55:40,797
over time as algorithms are broken.

691
00:55:41,657 --> 00:55:43,637
think we should always be concerned with

692
00:55:45,077 --> 00:55:45,629
how

693
00:55:46,309 --> 00:55:50,209
Bitcoin never has a single point of failure or single point of compromise.

694
00:55:52,769 --> 00:55:54,669
Within the quantum debate,

695
00:55:56,409 --> 00:56:01,169
should also just be concerned with classical breakthroughs and thinking about ways to

696
00:56:01,169 --> 00:56:05,409
mitigate this. And I think the way that I've been thinking about mitigating

697
00:56:05,621 --> 00:56:11,421
quantum attacks is also lining up with how we can mitigate classical

698
00:56:11,421 --> 00:56:16,161
attacks, which is have more than one signature algorithm based on different

699
00:56:16,161 --> 00:56:21,341
assumptions. So it is extremely unlikely that if one signature algorithm is broken,

700
00:56:22,481 --> 00:56:24,921
then Bitcoin security will be lost.

701
00:56:25,613 --> 00:56:27,613
Martin, I heard through the grapevine

702
00:56:27,613 --> 00:56:29,613
that you're raising money to try to steal

703
00:56:29,613 --> 00:56:31,613
Satoshi's coins with quantum computers.

704
00:56:31,613 --> 00:56:33,613
Is that true? How's it going?

705
00:56:33,613 --> 00:56:35,613
Good. Thanks for having me.

706
00:56:35,613 --> 00:56:37,613
I'm so happy to have this discussion.

707
00:56:37,613 --> 00:56:39,613
Very few people are interested in this.

708
00:56:39,613 --> 00:56:41,613
So there's a lot of parallel threads, actually.

709
00:56:41,613 --> 00:56:43,613
So I have a very large, short position

710
00:56:43,613 --> 00:56:46,613
in the publicly traded quantum companies,

711
00:56:46,613 --> 00:56:48,613
and I've gotten relatively close

712
00:56:48,613 --> 00:56:50,613
to all the private ones.

713
00:56:50,613 --> 00:56:52,613
I'm a quantum bear.

714
00:56:52,613 --> 00:56:55,613
My girlfriend and I are having a baby

715
00:56:55,613 --> 00:56:57,613
in four weeks, by the way.

716
00:56:57,613 --> 00:57:00,613
We have been focused on this problem

717
00:57:00,613 --> 00:57:02,613
quite a bit.

718
00:57:02,613 --> 00:57:04,613
So she is one of the first employees

719
00:57:04,613 --> 00:57:08,613
of OpenAI, and she has a master's degree

720
00:57:08,613 --> 00:57:10,613
from MIT in this field,

721
00:57:10,613 --> 00:57:12,613
and she also taught with Scott Aronson,

722
00:57:12,613 --> 00:57:15,613
who is one of the preeminent quantum experts,

723
00:57:15,613 --> 00:57:16,613
I'd say, in the world.

724
00:57:16,613 --> 00:57:19,613
And so a couple of interesting data points here.

725
00:57:19,613 --> 00:57:21,613
So I've used every single quantum platform.

726
00:57:21,613 --> 00:57:23,613
I've spent a lot of money on my own

727
00:57:23,613 --> 00:57:25,613
using IBM's quantum platform,

728
00:57:25,613 --> 00:57:26,613
which is probably the most sophisticated.

729
00:57:26,613 --> 00:57:30,613
But on AWS, you can use IonQ's system

730
00:57:30,613 --> 00:57:31,613
as well as Rigetti's system

731
00:57:31,613 --> 00:57:33,613
and a couple of others.

732
00:57:33,613 --> 00:57:36,613
So you cannot actually even run a Shor's program

733
00:57:36,613 --> 00:57:38,613
on these systems right now.

734
00:57:38,613 --> 00:57:40,613
Some people have implementations,

735
00:57:40,613 --> 00:57:42,613
but they're so-called partial Shor's

736
00:57:42,613 --> 00:57:45,613
or kind of Shor's-inspired, if you will.

737
00:57:45,613 --> 00:57:48,613
So running a QFT dagger

738
00:57:48,613 --> 00:57:51,613
is actually not possible right now on Shor's.

739
00:57:51,613 --> 00:57:53,613
One of the reasons is, for Shor's,

740
00:57:53,613 --> 00:57:54,613
on current quantum.

741
00:57:54,613 --> 00:57:55,613
So one of the reasons is

742
00:57:55,613 --> 00:57:57,613
you have tremendously low gate fidelity.

743
00:57:57,613 --> 00:58:00,613
So you have around a 99.9% gate fidelity,

744
00:58:00,613 --> 00:58:02,613
which sounds not terrible,

745
00:58:02,613 --> 00:58:06,613
but if you have 500,000 gates that you compile,

746
00:58:06,613 --> 00:58:11,613
0.999 to the 500,000th power

747
00:58:11,613 --> 00:58:13,613
is a very, very, very small number.

748
00:58:13,613 --> 00:58:15,613
That's 10 amounts of zero.

749
00:58:15,613 --> 00:58:17,613
And so we need better fidelity

750
00:58:17,613 --> 00:58:19,613
in the quantum world before we can get anywhere.

751
00:58:19,613 --> 00:58:22,613
For anybody that wants independent verification of this,

752
00:58:22,613 --> 00:58:23,613
that's really, really good.

753
00:58:23,613 --> 00:58:27,613
I stumbled upon this esoteric podcast

754
00:58:27,613 --> 00:58:30,613
called 692 or 632 Nanometer,

755
00:58:30,613 --> 00:58:32,613
which is a very nerdy physics podcast

756
00:58:32,613 --> 00:58:34,613
that's not very popular.

757
00:58:34,613 --> 00:58:37,613
But they had an episode with a fellow named Chris Monroe.

758
00:58:37,613 --> 00:58:38,613
Chris is like an academic hero of mine.

759
00:58:38,613 --> 00:58:40,613
He started IonQ,

760
00:58:40,613 --> 00:58:41,613
which is one of the largest

761
00:58:41,613 --> 00:58:44,613
publicly traded quantum computer companies.

762
00:58:44,613 --> 00:58:47,613
And IonQ has like a 60 qubit computer

763
00:58:47,613 --> 00:58:49,613
and IBM's best is 133.

764
00:58:49,613 --> 00:58:52,613
All of these are with low fidelity.

765
00:58:52,613 --> 00:58:54,613
And what's interesting about fidelity

766
00:58:54,613 --> 00:58:55,613
is that in the quantum community,

767
00:58:55,613 --> 00:58:59,613
it's been five or six years before fidelity added to nine.

768
00:58:59,613 --> 00:59:01,613
So just for references sake,

769
00:59:01,613 --> 00:59:03,613
transistors have around nine,

770
00:59:03,613 --> 00:59:08,613
I guess nine to 10 to the negative 18th fidelity.

771
00:59:09,613 --> 00:59:14,613
So we got around 10 to the negative third fidelity

772
00:59:14,613 --> 00:59:15,613
in quantum.

773
00:59:15,613 --> 00:59:17,613
So really, really, really well-fidelity

774
00:59:17,613 --> 00:59:19,613
and bandwidth as well.

775
00:59:19,613 --> 00:59:20,613
These computers just don't work.

776
00:59:20,613 --> 00:59:21,613
They're extremely slow.

777
00:59:21,613 --> 00:59:25,613
But we do know you go from a polynomial time,

778
00:59:25,613 --> 00:59:28,613
factoring time or DLP time

779
00:59:28,613 --> 00:59:32,613
from an exponential speed time.

780
00:59:32,613 --> 00:59:35,613
So this is the only thing in quantum.

781
00:59:36,613 --> 00:59:37,613
So this is really,

782
00:59:37,613 --> 00:59:39,613
this is the only thing quantum computers could do well.

783
00:59:39,613 --> 00:59:40,613
There's really no other point,

784
00:59:40,613 --> 00:59:44,613
which is why I'm short the common stocks of those companies.

785
00:59:44,613 --> 00:59:46,613
So, but if you want a really good data point,

786
00:59:46,613 --> 00:59:47,613
as I was saying,

787
00:59:47,613 --> 00:59:50,613
watch the 632 nanometer broadcast

788
00:59:50,613 --> 00:59:52,613
because you'll see Chris Monroe,

789
00:59:52,613 --> 00:59:55,613
again, my academic hero amongst others,

790
00:59:55,613 --> 00:59:58,613
but one of my top scientists

791
00:59:58,613 --> 01:00:00,613
that I'm jealous of their brain.

792
01:00:00,613 --> 01:00:03,613
He says that we're still 30 years away

793
01:00:03,613 --> 01:00:06,613
from a practical quantum computer that could do Shor's.

794
01:00:06,613 --> 01:00:10,613
Shor's is what quantum computers were invented for

795
01:00:10,613 --> 01:00:11,613
after Peter Shor did his thing.

796
01:00:12,288 --> 01:00:16,528
IBM started publishing on prototypes.

797
01:00:16,528 --> 01:00:20,088
There was never a need to build a quantum computer until then.

798
01:00:20,088 --> 01:00:21,408
The other thing I'll mention is that quantum computers

799
01:00:21,408 --> 01:00:23,008
are exquisitely slow.

800
01:00:23,008 --> 01:00:26,068
It's something that's not well understood.

801
01:00:26,068 --> 01:00:28,888
You know, you read lay press articles that say,

802
01:00:28,888 --> 01:00:30,048
well, quantum computers,

803
01:00:30,048 --> 01:00:32,728
they can run these calculations so fast, et cetera.

804
01:00:32,728 --> 01:00:34,728
Well, it's not exactly true.

805
01:00:34,728 --> 01:00:37,288
The clock speed of quantum computers,

806
01:00:37,288 --> 01:00:39,927
anywhere from 10 Hertz to 10,000 Hertz.

807
01:00:39,927 --> 01:00:43,408
So quite a lot less than the gigahertz we're used to.

808
01:00:43,408 --> 01:00:45,608
There's only one core, so to speak.

809
01:00:46,567 --> 01:00:49,368
The coherence time is very low.

810
01:00:49,368 --> 01:00:50,567
There's lots of like,

811
01:00:50,567 --> 01:00:53,968
it's sort of a toaster compared to an NVIDIA chip.

812
01:00:53,968 --> 01:00:57,448
The only reason the little toaster can beat the NVIDIA chip

813
01:00:57,448 --> 01:01:00,207
is because it's one specific algorithm, right?

814
01:01:00,207 --> 01:01:02,927
You're going from exponential time for the NVIDIA chip

815
01:01:02,927 --> 01:01:06,488
to polynomial time for the quantum chip.

816
01:01:06,488 --> 01:01:08,927
And that's exciting enough to be on top of it.

817
01:01:08,927 --> 01:01:11,528
And forgetting the raising money thing and all that,

818
01:01:11,528 --> 01:01:14,207
it's maybe a rumor that's too fresh.

819
01:01:15,407 --> 01:01:16,968
Just some ideas I've been having,

820
01:01:16,968 --> 01:01:20,527
but I certainly spent around that ballpark of money,

821
01:01:20,527 --> 01:01:25,328
myself and my girlfriend, looking at this unique problem.

822
01:01:25,328 --> 01:01:27,408
It's kind of one of the hardest problems

823
01:01:27,408 --> 01:01:30,368
or most interesting problems humanity

824
01:01:30,368 --> 01:01:31,807
is sort of tackling at the moment.

825
01:01:31,807 --> 01:01:35,088
And I think there's sort of, we have three approaches.

826
01:01:35,088 --> 01:01:37,408
So the first is a brute force approach,

827
01:01:37,408 --> 01:01:40,887
which many believe is outside realm of possibility.

828
01:01:40,887 --> 01:01:42,527
I'll talk about that in a second.

829
01:01:43,448 --> 01:01:45,448
The second approach is a mathematics breakthrough

830
01:01:45,448 --> 01:01:46,688
in classical.

831
01:01:46,688 --> 01:01:50,608
And I think that's the strongest, most likely approach

832
01:01:50,608 --> 01:01:53,088
that's going to hurt ECDSA.

833
01:01:53,088 --> 01:01:55,847
And the third is quantum, which I sort of view as a backup,

834
01:01:55,847 --> 01:01:59,088
but I want enough of a good relationship with quantum

835
01:01:59,088 --> 01:02:02,288
where if anybody gets to be the first

836
01:02:02,288 --> 01:02:03,527
to run a Shor's algorithm

837
01:02:03,527 --> 01:02:06,288
on a working large-scale quantum computer,

838
01:02:06,288 --> 01:02:07,567
I want it to be me.

839
01:02:07,567 --> 01:02:11,207
Now, the repercussions of taking Satoshi's coins,

840
01:02:11,207 --> 01:02:12,247
what's interesting about that

841
01:02:12,247 --> 01:02:15,527
is that it's really not a question of if.

842
01:02:15,527 --> 01:02:16,648
This is going to happen.

843
01:02:16,648 --> 01:02:20,088
The only way that you could put forth maybe a proposal

844
01:02:20,088 --> 01:02:24,407
to end this possibility is if the community of miners

845
01:02:24,407 --> 01:02:27,927
and anyone else who has the authority to upgrade Bitcoin

846
01:02:27,927 --> 01:02:30,168
would agree to throw away Satoshi's coins,

847
01:02:30,168 --> 01:02:31,288
make them impossible.

848
01:02:31,288 --> 01:02:34,487
So any key in the P2PK8 era

849
01:02:34,487 --> 01:02:37,448
where the X coordinate was released,

850
01:02:39,127 --> 01:02:42,648
you literally have the number that you need to map across

851
01:02:43,528 --> 01:02:47,008
ECC to get to the private key.

852
01:02:47,008 --> 01:02:49,648
And that's a really good headstart.

853
01:02:49,648 --> 01:02:52,808
Otherwise you can sort of attack the non side of it

854
01:02:52,808 --> 01:02:53,967
or attack both.

855
01:02:53,967 --> 01:02:55,248
And so I think on the classical math side,

856
01:02:55,248 --> 01:02:57,407
there's a lot of promising avenues,

857
01:02:57,407 --> 01:03:02,407
but GPT-5 is out for at least for employees of OpenAI

858
01:03:02,608 --> 01:03:04,088
and it's very, very good.

859
01:03:04,687 --> 01:03:06,847
And GROK4 is also very, very good.

860
01:03:06,847 --> 01:03:10,288
And math problems we couldn't solve before,

861
01:03:10,288 --> 01:03:11,847
I don't know, you can take Fermat's last theorem

862
01:03:11,847 --> 01:03:13,368
or something like that,

863
01:03:13,368 --> 01:03:14,767
they did get solved eventually.

864
01:03:14,767 --> 01:03:18,207
And math that we thought was impossible became trivial.

865
01:03:18,207 --> 01:03:23,207
And even things like integer factoring,

866
01:03:23,407 --> 01:03:26,687
which is sort of thought to be isomorphic to discrete log

867
01:03:26,687 --> 01:03:28,967
is something that I think,

868
01:03:28,967 --> 01:03:30,487
I'm not sure anything's safe.

869
01:03:30,847 --> 01:03:33,207
There's a, it's never been proven

870
01:03:33,207 --> 01:03:35,728
that you couldn't find a polynomial time algorithm

871
01:03:35,728 --> 01:03:37,008
for IFP or DLP.

872
01:03:37,008 --> 01:03:39,687
So I feel like we may do it.

873
01:03:39,687 --> 01:03:43,368
I've been working on a lot of exotic ideas.

874
01:03:43,368 --> 01:03:47,448
There's a recent, Bill Buchanan and Jamie Gilchrist,

875
01:03:47,448 --> 01:03:49,648
I think, I've been in correspondence with these guys

876
01:03:49,648 --> 01:03:52,047
who published affine non-to-tact vulnerabilities

877
01:03:52,047 --> 01:03:53,168
that are interesting.

878
01:03:53,168 --> 01:03:57,448
And relying on the poor implementation, right?

879
01:03:57,608 --> 01:04:02,608
Of some vendor a long time ago who repeated nonces

880
01:04:03,528 --> 01:04:05,008
or something like that.

881
01:04:05,008 --> 01:04:07,008
I think that's probably out of the question,

882
01:04:07,008 --> 01:04:11,127
but there are other types of attacks.

883
01:04:11,127 --> 01:04:12,927
There's sort of a lattice sieving

884
01:04:12,927 --> 01:04:13,967
and things that you can do.

885
01:04:13,967 --> 01:04:16,528
For example, one wallet I've looked at

886
01:04:16,528 --> 01:04:18,248
as kind of a nice, I don't know,

887
01:04:18,248 --> 01:04:23,047
first interesting proof of concept

888
01:04:23,047 --> 01:04:27,008
is any wallet that has like hundreds of thousands

889
01:04:27,567 --> 01:04:29,087
or millions of out transactions.

890
01:04:30,448 --> 01:04:33,367
I think those types of wallets have unique vulnerabilities

891
01:04:34,608 --> 01:04:39,127
because they're certainly leaking potential entropy

892
01:04:40,168 --> 01:04:44,328
as they sign millions of transactions.

893
01:04:44,328 --> 01:04:47,687
And Binance, even with completely random nonce,

894
01:04:47,687 --> 01:04:49,448
I think that there's an opportunity there.

895
01:04:49,448 --> 01:04:53,647
So I think AI is gonna be our best friend here.

896
01:04:53,647 --> 01:04:57,527
I think if somebody were to start a multimillion dollar

897
01:04:57,527 --> 01:05:00,448
or even tens of millions or hundreds of millions

898
01:05:00,448 --> 01:05:03,728
of dollar effort to get Satoshi's tokens,

899
01:05:03,728 --> 01:05:06,847
which has become economically more and more exciting, right?

900
01:05:06,847 --> 01:05:08,407
As Bitcoin price has gone up

901
01:05:08,407 --> 01:05:11,768
and it seems like the Lindy effect has taken hold.

902
01:05:11,768 --> 01:05:13,247
If somebody were to do that,

903
01:05:13,247 --> 01:05:17,407
I think they would try to focus on mathematics.

904
01:05:17,407 --> 01:05:20,288
There's maybe five or 10 living cryptographers

905
01:05:20,288 --> 01:05:23,328
that are really skilled at elliptic curve cryptography,

906
01:05:24,008 --> 01:05:26,208
including some people who invented like the Koblitz,

907
01:05:26,208 --> 01:05:28,687
who invented the Koblitz curve, that he's still alive.

908
01:05:28,687 --> 01:05:31,247
And Van Stone, who passed away,

909
01:05:31,247 --> 01:05:35,647
his colleague, Menendez, and a fellow in Australia.

910
01:05:35,647 --> 01:05:37,888
There's a handful of people that have done this.

911
01:05:37,888 --> 01:05:40,247
The GLV endomorphism, for example,

912
01:05:41,367 --> 01:05:44,448
Galbraith is the G in the GLV, he's still alive.

913
01:05:44,448 --> 01:05:46,807
Pollard, who's Pollard's row attack

914
01:05:46,807 --> 01:05:48,888
is the current fastest known attack

915
01:05:48,888 --> 01:05:52,087
for ECDSA or any elliptic curve for that matter

916
01:05:52,288 --> 01:05:53,168
is also still alive.

917
01:05:53,168 --> 01:05:56,048
And that is a root sort of a quadratic attack.

918
01:05:56,048 --> 01:06:01,048
So for two to the 256, you need two to the 228 operations.

919
01:06:01,288 --> 01:06:02,448
I have a very rare opinion

920
01:06:02,448 --> 01:06:05,807
that that's actually computationally feasible.

921
01:06:05,807 --> 01:06:09,008
Today, it's not exactly computationally feasible,

922
01:06:09,008 --> 01:06:12,008
but I do think that in the next 10 years,

923
01:06:12,008 --> 01:06:17,008
two to the 128 sort of, we will cross that threshold,

924
01:06:17,087 --> 01:06:19,807
whether it's with Moore's law or something else

925
01:06:19,807 --> 01:06:23,168
into being able to do two to the 128,

926
01:06:23,168 --> 01:06:25,488
which is basically enough to crack every key

927
01:06:25,488 --> 01:06:27,048
or at least a chunk of the keys.

928
01:06:27,048 --> 01:06:29,367
So I think it's gonna happen.

929
01:06:29,367 --> 01:06:34,367
It's just a question of where is, who does it, when, how?

930
01:06:36,168 --> 01:06:37,567
Are they doing it for the glory?

931
01:06:37,567 --> 01:06:38,807
Are they doing it for the money?

932
01:06:38,807 --> 01:06:40,208
Are they doing it for both?

933
01:06:40,208 --> 01:06:42,008
That's kind of where I come out.

934
01:06:42,008 --> 01:06:45,407
I'm curious, are there specific breakthroughs in quotes

935
01:06:45,407 --> 01:06:47,687
or like milestones that you would be looking for

936
01:06:47,687 --> 01:06:50,407
before you would think Bitcoin should take some action?

937
01:06:50,407 --> 01:06:53,247
And also, I just wanna clarify your position.

938
01:06:53,247 --> 01:06:56,008
Would you advocate for a coin burning approach

939
01:06:56,008 --> 01:06:58,928
when it comes to Satoshi's coins or P2PK coins?

940
01:07:00,328 --> 01:07:02,367
Yeah, I don't know.

941
01:07:02,367 --> 01:07:06,168
I think that any attack that can only,

942
01:07:06,168 --> 01:07:08,247
it depends on how successful the attack is.

943
01:07:08,247 --> 01:07:13,008
If there's a way to crack sec P256K1 in general,

944
01:07:13,008 --> 01:07:14,288
then you have a big problem.

945
01:07:14,288 --> 01:07:17,367
If there's a way to crack ECC in general,

946
01:07:18,048 --> 01:07:20,048
then you have a way bigger problem.

947
01:07:20,048 --> 01:07:22,567
Because we just don't know if it's this curve.

948
01:07:22,567 --> 01:07:24,527
Just having to focus on this curve

949
01:07:24,527 --> 01:07:28,127
makes the mathematician's job infinitely easier,

950
01:07:28,127 --> 01:07:30,608
but you could do it as a general attack.

951
01:07:30,608 --> 01:07:33,008
And that seems a little more far-fetched,

952
01:07:33,008 --> 01:07:35,288
but in the realm of possibility,

953
01:07:35,288 --> 01:07:37,288
in terms of advocating for what you do with the tokens,

954
01:07:37,288 --> 01:07:40,448
I think it's gonna be a function of a number of things,

955
01:07:40,448 --> 01:07:42,728
including the attitudes of the people involved.

956
01:07:42,728 --> 01:07:45,288
My personal attitude is, I'm not sure it's that important,

957
01:07:45,288 --> 01:07:49,647
but I think that certainly anyone in support

958
01:07:49,647 --> 01:07:50,488
of this community,

959
01:07:50,488 --> 01:07:53,647
I don't think would be the type of person that would,

960
01:07:53,647 --> 01:07:56,247
anyone who's been around Bitcoin, et cetera,

961
01:07:56,247 --> 01:08:00,847
would be somebody that wants to hurt the community.

962
01:08:00,847 --> 01:08:03,567
I think they probably wouldn't want a reward of some kind.

963
01:08:03,567 --> 01:08:06,127
Some Bitcoin maxis I've talked to have said,

964
01:08:06,127 --> 01:08:09,728
well, these tokens represent a bounty.

965
01:08:09,728 --> 01:08:12,768
And if you can solve the bounty, they're yours.

966
01:08:12,768 --> 01:08:14,367
Others disagree.

967
01:08:14,448 --> 01:08:19,168
If the Bitcoin proposal just basically says Satoshi's dead

968
01:08:19,168 --> 01:08:22,247
and we're gonna burn them, I think there's a good,

969
01:08:24,367 --> 01:08:26,488
it's very against the Bitcoin ethos, right?

970
01:08:26,488 --> 01:08:30,768
But it's still kind of a security upgrade.

971
01:08:30,768 --> 01:08:35,527
And because the opt-in of a PQC system

972
01:08:35,527 --> 01:08:36,847
would probably, I think,

973
01:08:36,847 --> 01:08:39,008
get you most of the tokens to opt-in.

974
01:08:39,008 --> 01:08:42,008
And I think that whether it's a Mt. Gox tokens

975
01:08:42,008 --> 01:08:43,527
or Satoshi's tokens,

976
01:08:43,527 --> 01:08:46,207
10 or 20% of the tokens would be left behind,

977
01:08:46,207 --> 01:08:49,007
but maybe that's better than not.

978
01:08:49,007 --> 01:08:51,327
So a good analog was the Euro.

979
01:08:51,327 --> 01:08:54,327
Some countries will permanently honor Euro exchange

980
01:08:54,327 --> 01:08:56,048
for Deutsche Mark or whatever.

981
01:08:56,048 --> 01:08:59,767
Other countries have said, there's a drop dead date.

982
01:08:59,767 --> 01:09:03,288
If after 2001 or two, I think it was,

983
01:09:03,288 --> 01:09:04,128
there were countries,

984
01:09:04,128 --> 01:09:06,688
like I struggle to remember which country exactly,

985
01:09:06,688 --> 01:09:08,168
but France or Italy said,

986
01:09:08,168 --> 01:09:10,568
after this date, you can't change your lira or franc

987
01:09:10,568 --> 01:09:13,688
into Euro.

988
01:09:13,688 --> 01:09:16,767
And I think that it's not unreasonable to say the same.

989
01:09:16,767 --> 01:09:18,967
There are people who've been looking to laws,

990
01:09:18,967 --> 01:09:22,767
like if you don't claim property after 10 or 20 years,

991
01:09:22,767 --> 01:09:23,647
is it lost property?

992
01:09:23,647 --> 01:09:26,168
If somebody leaves a $100 bill on a subway

993
01:09:26,168 --> 01:09:28,568
and they go out and they mind their own business

994
01:09:28,568 --> 01:09:29,967
and then they die,

995
01:09:29,967 --> 01:09:32,327
that $100 bill, whose property is it?

996
01:09:32,327 --> 01:09:33,847
It's probably lost property

997
01:09:33,847 --> 01:09:35,688
and it's yours if you pick it up.

998
01:09:35,688 --> 01:09:36,527
So-

999
01:09:36,527 --> 01:09:39,128
I mean, just on the flip side of that argument,

1000
01:09:39,128 --> 01:09:41,048
are you concerned about the market impacts?

1001
01:09:41,048 --> 01:09:42,608
Let's just like live in this universe

1002
01:09:42,608 --> 01:09:44,048
and there's like fairyland for a second

1003
01:09:44,048 --> 01:09:46,207
that like quantum computers are real and they're happening

1004
01:09:46,207 --> 01:09:47,887
and this is something we need to worry about

1005
01:09:47,887 --> 01:09:49,488
like sooner rather than later.

1006
01:09:49,488 --> 01:09:52,007
Do you, are you concerned about the market impacts?

1007
01:09:52,007 --> 01:09:54,048
I mean, like what's your kind of position

1008
01:09:54,048 --> 01:09:55,168
about the market impacts

1009
01:09:55,168 --> 01:10:00,087
of a Satoshi's coins liquidation impact basically?

1010
01:10:00,087 --> 01:10:01,327
Yeah, I mean, I'm a market guy

1011
01:10:01,327 --> 01:10:04,488
and I still don't want to kind of think about it

1012
01:10:04,488 --> 01:10:07,327
because like, I feel like on one hand,

1013
01:10:07,327 --> 01:10:10,928
if done properly, maybe the person can exit

1014
01:10:10,928 --> 01:10:13,647
depending on what the Bitcoin temperature looks like

1015
01:10:13,647 --> 01:10:14,568
five or 10 years from now,

1016
01:10:14,568 --> 01:10:16,767
they may be able to just exit orderly

1017
01:10:16,767 --> 01:10:18,967
and that's not that crazy.

1018
01:10:18,967 --> 01:10:20,568
On the other hand,

1019
01:10:20,568 --> 01:10:22,568
they could try to exit and it could crash.

1020
01:10:22,568 --> 01:10:24,128
I think that it depends on what you're in it for.

1021
01:10:24,128 --> 01:10:26,928
If you're North Korea, that's one thing.

1022
01:10:26,928 --> 01:10:28,568
If you're me, that's another.

1023
01:10:28,568 --> 01:10:30,048
And I, and that's why I actually think

1024
01:10:30,048 --> 01:10:33,407
that the first reaction I was talking to somebody,

1025
01:10:33,407 --> 01:10:34,808
it sounds like you know,

1026
01:10:34,808 --> 01:10:36,527
because there's literally one person that knows this

1027
01:10:36,527 --> 01:10:37,368
about this idea,

1028
01:10:37,368 --> 01:10:39,887
but this person also told me they'd connected to you.

1029
01:10:39,887 --> 01:10:41,887
I know who you're talking about, of course.

1030
01:10:41,887 --> 01:10:43,688
They're a lovely person.

1031
01:10:43,688 --> 01:10:45,207
Lovely person.

1032
01:10:45,207 --> 01:10:46,967
Absolutely no problem, I'm telling you

1033
01:10:46,967 --> 01:10:48,688
because I think they specifically said

1034
01:10:48,688 --> 01:10:50,288
you're the person to talk to.

1035
01:10:50,288 --> 01:10:53,248
But the, I think you're better.

1036
01:10:53,248 --> 01:10:55,207
Their first reaction was, no, don't do this.

1037
01:10:55,207 --> 01:10:56,767
What the hell are you talking about?

1038
01:10:56,767 --> 01:10:59,527
Their second reaction was, wait a second,

1039
01:10:59,527 --> 01:11:01,007
if it's going to happen,

1040
01:11:01,007 --> 01:11:03,967
it should probably happen on Bitcoin community terms,

1041
01:11:03,967 --> 01:11:07,368
not, you know, North Korean terms or somebody else.

1042
01:11:07,368 --> 01:11:09,688
And again, you keep saying quantum.

1043
01:11:09,688 --> 01:11:12,007
I just want to underline that, you know,

1044
01:11:12,007 --> 01:11:13,967
my opinion is quantum is the backup plan.

1045
01:11:13,967 --> 01:11:18,728
And I think that advanced math comes from anywhere.

1046
01:11:18,728 --> 01:11:22,087
But when I get back to the point of like eight or 10 decent,

1047
01:11:22,087 --> 01:11:24,887
you know, elliptic curve researchers in the world,

1048
01:11:26,048 --> 01:11:30,928
what I'd say is that with AI and things like GPT-5,

1049
01:11:30,928 --> 01:11:33,488
which are, you know, scheduled for imminent release,

1050
01:11:34,447 --> 01:11:36,608
you probably have a superhuman at some point.

1051
01:11:36,608 --> 01:11:39,168
I don't know if it's GPT-6, seven, eight,

1052
01:11:39,168 --> 01:11:40,728
I don't know what, when,

1053
01:11:40,728 --> 01:11:42,087
but you will absolutely have a computer

1054
01:11:42,087 --> 01:11:44,808
that can get you closer to solving these problems.

1055
01:11:44,808 --> 01:11:49,128
And if you look at the running time of different algorithms,

1056
01:11:49,128 --> 01:11:52,288
many have improved and things like matrix multiplication,

1057
01:11:52,288 --> 01:11:55,887
they've undergone slow improvements over decades.

1058
01:11:55,887 --> 01:11:58,207
And, you know, Pollard's row

1059
01:11:58,207 --> 01:11:59,887
and the so-called kangaroo attack,

1060
01:12:01,128 --> 01:12:03,407
you know, and other things like GLV endomorphism,

1061
01:12:04,288 --> 01:12:05,767
which is sort of a speed up to all of those,

1062
01:12:05,767 --> 01:12:09,327
we will slowly get faster and faster solutions

1063
01:12:09,327 --> 01:12:13,728
for reversing ECC primes or ECC key pairs.

1064
01:12:13,728 --> 01:12:16,647
And, you know, there's just no doubt about that.

1065
01:12:16,647 --> 01:12:19,527
And humans that are smart can work in these problems.

1066
01:12:19,527 --> 01:12:23,248
Andrew Weil solved a 400 year old problem by himself,

1067
01:12:23,248 --> 01:12:26,168
you know, with thousands of AI mathematicians

1068
01:12:26,168 --> 01:12:27,767
who are smarter than humans,

1069
01:12:27,767 --> 01:12:29,728
I think we're gonna see something here.

1070
01:12:29,728 --> 01:12:33,168
And, you know, that's where a lot of my work is done.

1071
01:12:33,928 --> 01:12:36,808
I can, you know, implement some of these things

1072
01:12:36,808 --> 01:12:38,327
is the only advantage I bring,

1073
01:12:39,207 --> 01:12:43,168
but the mathematics success, you know,

1074
01:12:43,168 --> 01:12:45,568
instead of like relying on a handful of those professors

1075
01:12:45,568 --> 01:12:47,568
to get them interested in taking a sabbatical,

1076
01:12:47,568 --> 01:12:50,688
to get them interested in spending their time on this

1077
01:12:50,688 --> 01:12:54,248
of the rest of however long it takes to do it,

1078
01:12:54,248 --> 01:12:56,647
you know, AI is going to be the answer, I think.

1079
01:12:57,527 --> 01:13:00,168
Again, the other thing is Moore's law has not stopped.

1080
01:13:00,168 --> 01:13:01,688
And, you know, there's all kinds

1081
01:13:01,688 --> 01:13:04,688
of new computing substrates coming, not just quantum,

1082
01:13:04,688 --> 01:13:09,327
but optical, thermodynamic, so-called analog.

1083
01:13:09,327 --> 01:13:12,327
When Alan Turing wanted to do Riemann sums,

1084
01:13:12,327 --> 01:13:14,207
he made a machine and just before he worked

1085
01:13:14,207 --> 01:13:18,568
on the Manchester computer in around 44, the war was over,

1086
01:13:18,568 --> 01:13:19,887
he needed a new project.

1087
01:13:19,887 --> 01:13:21,767
He wanted to make a machine

1088
01:13:21,767 --> 01:13:23,407
that would calculate Riemann sums.

1089
01:13:23,407 --> 01:13:26,368
And he made one out of wood and steel.

1090
01:13:26,368 --> 01:13:28,928
And, you know, there's no reason an analog computer

1091
01:13:28,928 --> 01:13:32,007
specifically focused on this exact problem,

1092
01:13:32,007 --> 01:13:35,168
not in ASIC so much, but a different style of computer.

1093
01:13:35,168 --> 01:13:36,327
There's an interesting nature paper

1094
01:13:36,327 --> 01:13:41,327
about using magnets to find primes

1095
01:13:41,527 --> 01:13:44,007
or find, you know, solutions to semi-primes.

1096
01:13:44,007 --> 01:13:45,688
So I feel like there's, you know,

1097
01:13:45,688 --> 01:13:47,967
it's going to happen before quantum, quite frankly,

1098
01:13:47,967 --> 01:13:50,087
but if it's quantum first, and it's one of these companies

1099
01:13:50,087 --> 01:13:53,447
that does have like logarithmic breakthrough, you know,

1100
01:13:53,447 --> 01:13:57,087
again, who's going to be the first person to push that button

1101
01:13:57,128 --> 01:13:59,767
because it's $100 billion button.

1102
01:13:59,767 --> 01:14:02,248
And I'd like to be the first person, obviously,

1103
01:14:02,248 --> 01:14:04,647
but, you know, it's sort of,

1104
01:14:04,647 --> 01:14:06,447
it brings up a lot of legal questions.

1105
01:14:06,447 --> 01:14:10,928
It brings up other questions and burning it to a PKC wallet

1106
01:14:10,928 --> 01:14:14,608
would kind of be the most bullish thing you could ever do.

1107
01:14:14,608 --> 01:14:16,128
But if you do come up with a classical breakthrough

1108
01:14:16,128 --> 01:14:17,967
or even be the first quantum person,

1109
01:14:17,967 --> 01:14:20,007
I think you get a little immortalized

1110
01:14:20,007 --> 01:14:22,368
and that might be worth more than the money.

1111
01:14:22,368 --> 01:14:25,688
As much as the money is, one, you may not get to keep it.

1112
01:14:25,728 --> 01:14:27,928
It could be some law enforcement that says,

1113
01:14:27,928 --> 01:14:29,447
no, no, no, no, you can't take that.

1114
01:14:29,447 --> 01:14:32,168
And then secondly, you know, money is money,

1115
01:14:32,168 --> 01:14:34,967
but I think in mathematical fame terms,

1116
01:14:34,967 --> 01:14:38,327
there's no comparison to be somebody who say

1117
01:14:38,327 --> 01:14:39,967
develops a real attack on ECDSA.

1118
01:14:39,967 --> 01:14:42,647
That's probably worth more than $100 billion,

1119
01:14:42,647 --> 01:14:44,647
as crazy as that sounds in math credit.

1120
01:14:45,568 --> 01:14:48,048
Hunter, I'd love to hear from you really quickly, Martin,

1121
01:14:48,048 --> 01:14:49,568
though, before we go to Hunter.

1122
01:14:49,568 --> 01:14:50,887
I'm just curious, you know,

1123
01:14:50,887 --> 01:14:52,447
you said that you think that this is likely

1124
01:14:52,447 --> 01:14:54,327
like a 30 years away problem.

1125
01:14:54,407 --> 01:14:57,248
Given what you know about Bitcoin governance,

1126
01:14:57,248 --> 01:14:59,128
what do you think is the appropriate timeline

1127
01:14:59,128 --> 01:15:02,608
for Bitcoin to start, you know, preparing or making plans

1128
01:15:02,608 --> 01:15:04,207
or, you know, actually executing

1129
01:15:04,207 --> 01:15:05,568
some of these mitigation proposals,

1130
01:15:05,568 --> 01:15:06,928
some of which are pretty heavy handed.

1131
01:15:06,928 --> 01:15:09,967
I mean, burning Satoshi's coins is not gonna be easy

1132
01:15:09,967 --> 01:15:11,048
to get over the finish line.

1133
01:15:11,048 --> 01:15:13,887
So I'm just curious, like, at what point do you think,

1134
01:15:13,887 --> 01:15:15,647
you know, core devs, et cetera,

1135
01:15:15,647 --> 01:15:17,688
should start, you know, seriously thinking

1136
01:15:17,688 --> 01:15:18,887
about mitigation plans here?

1137
01:15:18,887 --> 01:15:21,568
Like how far away of a problem is this in your opinion?

1138
01:15:21,608 --> 01:15:24,488
Yeah, and again, I hate to pick on this

1139
01:15:24,488 --> 01:15:27,728
because our mutual friend has only the best things

1140
01:15:27,728 --> 01:15:29,887
to say about you and you sound very,

1141
01:15:29,887 --> 01:15:30,928
a bit like a very nice person,

1142
01:15:30,928 --> 01:15:33,808
but I don't think that it's just quantum, right?

1143
01:15:33,808 --> 01:15:36,488
Quantum is 30 years away in my mind.

1144
01:15:36,488 --> 01:15:40,447
But, you know, AI is vastly outstripping quantum.

1145
01:15:40,447 --> 01:15:44,168
And, you know, with what I've heard about GPT-5

1146
01:15:44,168 --> 01:15:47,087
and other things going on in AI,

1147
01:15:47,087 --> 01:15:49,887
I just don't underestimate a superhuman computer

1148
01:15:49,887 --> 01:15:50,728
figuring this out.

1149
01:15:50,887 --> 01:15:55,447
The discrete log problem has stymied human minds

1150
01:15:55,447 --> 01:15:57,568
since it sort of arised,

1151
01:15:57,568 --> 01:16:01,207
but it may not stymie, you know, an AI mind.

1152
01:16:01,207 --> 01:16:02,928
So just keep that in mind.

1153
01:16:02,928 --> 01:16:06,168
Quantum is kind of the dumb way,

1154
01:16:06,168 --> 01:16:08,368
the common denominator here that like,

1155
01:16:08,368 --> 01:16:10,048
okay, if AI doesn't get good enough,

1156
01:16:10,048 --> 01:16:15,048
or if you believe that ECDSA or ECC in general

1157
01:16:15,288 --> 01:16:17,407
is a true one-way function,

1158
01:16:17,407 --> 01:16:20,327
then okay, you have to like fall back on either quantum

1159
01:16:20,928 --> 01:16:22,407
or again, don't sleep on,

1160
01:16:22,407 --> 01:16:23,608
I wouldn't say Moore's law,

1161
01:16:23,608 --> 01:16:25,368
because it's not just Moore's law,

1162
01:16:25,368 --> 01:16:28,007
but, you know, if you have a hundred thousand H-100s

1163
01:16:29,128 --> 01:16:30,447
and you find, you know,

1164
01:16:30,447 --> 01:16:32,728
maybe not a complete solution to the problem,

1165
01:16:32,728 --> 01:16:34,647
you would also could find various speed-ups

1166
01:16:34,647 --> 01:16:35,608
to say Pollard's row.

1167
01:16:35,608 --> 01:16:37,447
There's no reason to believe at all

1168
01:16:37,447 --> 01:16:39,087
that Pollard's row is the fastest thing.

1169
01:16:39,087 --> 01:16:40,488
John Pollard retired.

1170
01:16:40,488 --> 01:16:41,808
He has the cutest website in the world.

1171
01:16:41,808 --> 01:16:44,847
I've been trying to go find a way to go meet him.

1172
01:16:44,847 --> 01:16:46,887
But if you find his website, you'll get a good chuckle

1173
01:16:46,887 --> 01:16:49,808
because he's really the true autist mathematician

1174
01:16:50,248 --> 01:16:52,207
who by himself found extremely large number

1175
01:16:52,207 --> 01:16:54,767
of interesting cryptography advances.

1176
01:16:54,767 --> 01:16:58,207
But so again, I don't know that all that stuff

1177
01:16:59,168 --> 01:17:00,407
is all just quantum.

1178
01:17:00,407 --> 01:17:01,967
In terms of protocol stuff,

1179
01:17:01,967 --> 01:17:04,887
I always go to Eric if I have a question on this stuff.

1180
01:17:04,887 --> 01:17:08,688
I'm not, you know, steeped in the Bitcoin community.

1181
01:17:08,688 --> 01:17:12,808
I think this is maybe the most interesting hack of all time.

1182
01:17:12,808 --> 01:17:15,568
So, you know, hackers, you know,

1183
01:17:15,568 --> 01:17:18,448
who are interested in this are, you know, there are a few,

1184
01:17:18,448 --> 01:17:22,088
but I think a well-determined, like very well-funded,

1185
01:17:22,088 --> 01:17:25,367
aggressive kind of incentivized team

1186
01:17:25,367 --> 01:17:27,688
could probably do better than the errant

1187
01:17:27,688 --> 01:17:30,647
kind of one mathematician who's maybe brilliant,

1188
01:17:30,647 --> 01:17:32,487
but doesn't have funding, doesn't have the time,

1189
01:17:32,487 --> 01:17:34,088
doesn't have the dedication to sit there

1190
01:17:34,088 --> 01:17:38,007
and do like a 10-year plan like a government

1191
01:17:38,007 --> 01:17:41,088
might be able to do or a sophisticated corporation,

1192
01:17:41,088 --> 01:17:42,848
you know, might be able to organize.

1193
01:17:42,848 --> 01:17:43,808
That makes a lot of sense.

1194
01:17:43,808 --> 01:17:46,887
And actually, Robin, one of my questions on my list for you

1195
01:17:46,887 --> 01:17:48,808
was, you know, at what point do you think

1196
01:17:48,808 --> 01:17:50,607
that we'll need to upgrade, you know,

1197
01:17:50,607 --> 01:17:53,928
cryptographic security for Bitcoin, you know, just generally?

1198
01:17:53,928 --> 01:17:55,367
Like, even if it's not quantum,

1199
01:17:55,367 --> 01:17:57,487
is there like any other risk that would warrant

1200
01:17:57,487 --> 01:17:59,647
some kind of crypto upgrade for Bitcoin?

1201
01:17:59,647 --> 01:18:00,848
Oh, go ahead.

1202
01:18:00,848 --> 01:18:04,328
One last thing I'd say is just going to 512 bits

1203
01:18:04,328 --> 01:18:05,808
would be a very big deal.

1204
01:18:05,808 --> 01:18:07,808
That would be a much higher security.

1205
01:18:09,487 --> 01:18:10,328
Interesting.

1206
01:18:10,328 --> 01:18:11,928
Hunter, thoughts?

1207
01:18:11,928 --> 01:18:12,767
Oh, yeah.

1208
01:18:12,767 --> 01:18:13,607
Wow.

1209
01:18:13,607 --> 01:18:15,727
Well, thank you very much, Martin, for popping in.

1210
01:18:15,727 --> 01:18:17,007
It's funny.

1211
01:18:17,007 --> 01:18:21,968
It reminds me a bit of how Bitcoin-ers

1212
01:18:21,968 --> 01:18:24,568
talk about things in a bit of an echo chamber,

1213
01:18:24,568 --> 01:18:28,328
and it's always kind of fun to see outsiders looking in.

1214
01:18:28,328 --> 01:18:30,568
And I wouldn't say you're necessarily an outsider.

1215
01:18:30,568 --> 01:18:33,168
You're kind of peripheral, but, you know,

1216
01:18:33,168 --> 01:18:38,048
I appreciate you popping in and giving us like your takes.

1217
01:18:38,048 --> 01:18:39,848
I'm definitely not Mr. Bitcoin, so.

1218
01:18:40,848 --> 01:18:41,767
Yeah.

1219
01:18:41,767 --> 01:18:46,767
And so the one thing I would say is just,

1220
01:18:47,127 --> 01:18:52,088
if you do wind up finding an exploit,

1221
01:18:52,088 --> 01:18:57,088
could you please like coordinate with us to like,

1222
01:18:59,048 --> 01:19:03,127
you know, like a canary, you know,

1223
01:19:03,127 --> 01:19:06,487
like we've talked about like a canary UTXO

1224
01:19:06,487 --> 01:19:11,168
or like the output of block one, for example.

1225
01:19:11,527 --> 01:19:13,288
This is undoubtedly Satoshi's coins.

1226
01:19:13,288 --> 01:19:16,288
It's right after the Genesis block.

1227
01:19:16,288 --> 01:19:17,568
It is spendable.

1228
01:19:18,527 --> 01:19:20,848
Maybe we could just like point to that and say like,

1229
01:19:20,848 --> 01:19:25,848
if you can spend that, then like, oh, you know,

1230
01:19:26,607 --> 01:19:30,607
and obviously like that's a different thing

1231
01:19:30,607 --> 01:19:33,367
than like, you know, hacking Binance's wallet

1232
01:19:33,367 --> 01:19:34,208
or something, right?

1233
01:19:34,208 --> 01:19:39,208
But like, I don't know, if you just could get close to,

1234
01:19:39,568 --> 01:19:41,328
I would just ask.

1235
01:19:41,328 --> 01:19:44,288
And also this is in your own selfish interest too,

1236
01:19:44,288 --> 01:19:48,527
in that like, you don't want to like tank the price,

1237
01:19:48,527 --> 01:19:49,367
right?

1238
01:19:49,367 --> 01:19:52,688
Necessarily, like you want to help us be prepared,

1239
01:19:52,688 --> 01:19:56,647
help us like understand like the scope of the threat.

1240
01:19:56,647 --> 01:20:00,168
And that's really cool that you're thinking about

1241
01:20:00,168 --> 01:20:03,288
this problem and a number of different angles,

1242
01:20:03,288 --> 01:20:05,288
not just the quantum angle, but like Paulette's row,

1243
01:20:05,288 --> 01:20:10,288
the like the, just like any fundamental ECDLT breaks,

1244
01:20:10,487 --> 01:20:13,367
you know, like that's really cool.

1245
01:20:13,367 --> 01:20:18,328
And wow, so anyway, just asking politely,

1246
01:20:18,328 --> 01:20:22,288
maybe you could coordinate with us to like indicate

1247
01:20:22,288 --> 01:20:23,127
that it's.

1248
01:20:23,262 --> 01:20:37,302
A really quick story on that is there's a Bitcoin zillionaire who's, you know, played a big role in the community that I was, I was asked to consult on because he also happens to have a very large holding in a quantum computing stock.

1249
01:20:37,582 --> 01:20:45,262
Quantum computing is, as you, as you guys may know, it was this shit industry and you couldn't give stock in quantum computing companies away.

1250
01:20:45,582 --> 01:20:50,141
And somehow it's become a hot industry again, which baffles my mind because almost no progress has been made.

1251
01:20:50,622 --> 01:21:03,181
But the fellow said, you know, he's very close with the core developers and he said something like, look, you know, just, just give us a heads up and we can talk about it and work on it.

1252
01:21:03,181 --> 01:21:17,582
And I said, that's no problem with me because, you know, the mathematical glory here again is, is the prize, you know, I, I, you know, even taking that money and trying to spend it and all that, you know, I'm independently, you know, successful anyway.

1253
01:21:17,582 --> 01:21:23,021
I think this is just like the best paper you could ever publish in the history of mankind almost.

1254
01:21:23,021 --> 01:21:27,342
So it's just like, you know, it is literally accomplishing the impossible.

1255
01:21:27,582 --> 01:21:28,541
Like, I, yeah.

1256
01:21:28,541 --> 01:21:43,302
And that's the other thing I'd say is that, you know, just keep in mind efforts between whether it's mine or somebody else's, I mean, they have a very low probability of working soon, but they also have the feature of, they have almost a certain probability of working at some point.

1257
01:21:43,302 --> 01:21:51,742
And I'm a relatively young person that, that I think I could see this through, whether it's 10 years from now or 20 or 30, I still want to be the first person to touch that button.

1258
01:21:52,022 --> 01:21:54,742
It's less impressive if it happens 30 years from now.

1259
01:21:55,022 --> 01:21:57,982
But, you know, that's, that's, thanks for listening.

1260
01:21:58,982 --> 01:22:10,662
Well, I just, I consider this all just part of protocol hardening, you know, like, like, if there is truly like an exploit that is possible, given enough resources, Bitcoiners should know.

1261
01:22:10,901 --> 01:22:18,101
And so it's really just, you know, yeah, I appreciate your efforts.

1262
01:22:18,141 --> 01:22:23,062
And you, what you're doing is essentially hardening the protocol.

1263
01:22:23,702 --> 01:22:25,501
So I wouldn't consider it an attack.

1264
01:22:25,861 --> 01:22:30,662
I would consider it somebody who's just exploring the problem space, making sure that Bitcoin's safe for everyone.

1265
01:22:33,262 --> 01:22:33,782
Yeah, I agree.

1266
01:22:33,782 --> 01:22:44,222
And I think that, you know, the literature on, at least on archive, but some other places as well, like, there are definitely, there is definitely progress being made.

1267
01:22:44,461 --> 01:22:48,622
You know, the, the Affine Nance attack caught me off guard.

1268
01:22:48,622 --> 01:22:59,901
I ran this attack or in my own derivative on it, and certainly found wallets that were, I guess, exposed, you know, they didn't have tokens in them.

1269
01:23:00,342 --> 01:23:15,862
But I do think that as the tax and the cryptography community become more advanced, because EDSSA, EDSSA, EDSSA, as ECDSA also is implemented in things like SSH, and in many, many other things.

1270
01:23:15,862 --> 01:23:21,541
So it's not just Bitcoin, and it's probably the most important part of it, to be frank.

1271
01:23:21,821 --> 01:23:26,301
But I do think, you know, there are papers every year on new attacks.

1272
01:23:26,982 --> 01:23:31,821
They almost all, most of the interesting ones focus on lattice attacks.

1273
01:23:31,901 --> 01:23:43,101
And, you know, one recently, very sophisticated AI, which may or may not be available to the general public, recently told me about an interesting attack using something called tropical geometry.

1274
01:23:43,502 --> 01:23:46,502
Which is, you know, I never, I've never, never heard of it before.

1275
01:23:46,502 --> 01:23:47,702
I'm not a professional mathematician.

1276
01:23:48,142 --> 01:23:54,422
But tropical geometry is an extremely esoteric, small field that was developed years ago.

1277
01:23:54,422 --> 01:24:05,181
But if you think about it again, how Weil solved Fermat's last theorem, which was thought to be nearly intractable, he used this vastly different area of math to sort of bridge two gaps in math.

1278
01:24:05,222 --> 01:24:07,541
And I think that's probably what's going to happen here.

1279
01:24:07,541 --> 01:24:10,422
And again, quantum is kind of your last resort, in my opinion.

1280
01:24:10,422 --> 01:24:21,062
I mean, whenever the dumb quantum industry, you know, you know, they're sort of very poorly run generally kind of place, whenever they can get, you know, something to happen, I think, you know, we'll wait.

1281
01:24:21,062 --> 01:24:25,502
But if you look at Google, for example, Google does not rent a quantum computer.

1282
01:24:25,982 --> 01:24:34,541
So, you know, you could also view them as a relatively sophisticated actor that's probably not interested in stealing anything.

1283
01:24:35,541 --> 01:24:45,982
And just by virtue of them creating a quantum computer, they're just, I think, sort of a better actor, I wouldn't call them a good actor, but a much better actor to the extent they get where they get to.

1284
01:24:45,982 --> 01:24:56,061
IBM also, while they put their quantum computers on the cloud, they don't necessarily, aren't going to rush to put out a super powerful quantum computer on the cloud.

1285
01:24:56,381 --> 01:24:57,982
And Bitcoin tentacles run deep.

1286
01:24:57,982 --> 01:25:15,501
I mean, both of those companies could easily establish or have already established really good relationships with those companies and other companies like SciQuantum, which is a fairly strong, large, privately held company, who some think are contender to be first.

1287
01:25:15,821 --> 01:25:17,022
They're also in that camp.

1288
01:25:17,022 --> 01:25:30,381
So I think, you know, there may be an ability to sort of intercept those companies and before letting other people use their computers, intercepting them and say, hey, we represent the Bitcoin developers.

1289
01:25:30,381 --> 01:25:32,742
We really now see your advance.

1290
01:25:32,742 --> 01:25:37,142
Congratulations. But we have a very important decision to make very soon.

1291
01:25:37,142 --> 01:25:41,341
And don't don't put this computer on the cloud before we can get our ducks in a row.

1292
01:25:42,941 --> 01:25:45,422
We have a few more minutes before I think we need to wrap up.

1293
01:25:45,501 --> 01:25:46,902
Martin, I did have one question.

1294
01:25:46,902 --> 01:25:56,182
I'd actually like to hear Robin's perspective on this as well, which is why do you think quantum companies are getting so much attention right now, given how little progress there's been?

1295
01:25:56,182 --> 01:25:59,221
Like, why is this blowing up so much, in your opinion?

1296
01:25:59,781 --> 01:26:04,462
Yeah, I've lost millions of dollars on this, so I'm ready to tear my hair out answering this question.

1297
01:26:04,462 --> 01:26:07,182
But we're sort of in a bubble of sorts.

1298
01:26:07,821 --> 01:26:10,661
You know, the meme coin bubble is a good example.

1299
01:26:10,982 --> 01:26:18,781
There's a bubble in nuclear energy, in eVTOLs, it's just a bubble.

1300
01:26:18,781 --> 01:26:20,821
And it sounds super exciting.

1301
01:26:20,821 --> 01:26:25,742
It's very, you know, kind of French science and exotic, you know, leading edge science.

1302
01:26:25,941 --> 01:26:28,101
NVIDIA has been such a big performer.

1303
01:26:28,101 --> 01:26:29,422
It's the biggest company in the world now.

1304
01:26:30,101 --> 01:26:32,422
So it kind of makes sense that people kind of want what's next.

1305
01:26:32,422 --> 01:26:36,341
Amazing.

1306
01:26:36,341 --> 01:26:41,702
Any final thoughts from Hunter, Robin, Jameson, Ethan?

1307
01:26:42,422 --> 01:26:44,702
This was a really great space.

1308
01:26:45,262 --> 01:26:47,381
Paul, I hope you had fun in particular.

1309
01:26:48,541 --> 01:26:53,142
But yeah, any final thoughts on kind of like, Robin, do you want to go ahead?

1310
01:26:53,142 --> 01:26:54,862
I see you just took your mute off.

1311
01:26:55,862 --> 01:27:05,821
Yeah, my final thought is just that I think it's absolutely safe to wait for actual quantum computers to pop up.

1312
01:27:05,821 --> 01:27:10,821
And then we can start thinking about migrating and mitigations and stuff like that.

1313
01:27:10,821 --> 01:27:20,621
And until then, we should calm down people and treat it as like a thing from like magical land that is just not real yet, maybe.

1314
01:27:20,862 --> 01:27:22,541
And maybe we'll never become real.

1315
01:27:22,541 --> 01:27:23,061
That's what I meant.

1316
01:27:23,742 --> 01:27:26,142
So, Ethan, what are your final thoughts?

1317
01:27:26,302 --> 01:27:29,941
I think the best way to get people to panic is to tell them, don't panic.

1318
01:27:29,941 --> 01:27:31,182
There's nothing to panic about.

1319
01:27:31,982 --> 01:27:49,262
I think the right approach to convince people that Bitcoin is taking all of these threats seriously, including just classical attacks on ECDSA, is to have plans and very well thought through proposals on how to do that.

1320
01:27:49,262 --> 01:27:57,941
And very well thought through proposals on how to mitigate those risks on a both short timescale and also on a longer timescale.

1321
01:28:00,941 --> 01:28:01,821
Jameson, go ahead. Yeah.

1322
01:28:02,341 --> 01:28:08,302
So this is more meta and thinking in terms of ossification.

1323
01:28:08,302 --> 01:28:25,462
But one of the things that I find most frustrating when discussing protocol level changes, improvements, what have you, these days, is that it seems like there's more and more of a cacophony of pushback saying, why are you rushing this?

1324
01:28:25,462 --> 01:28:27,341
What's the urgency all of a sudden?

1325
01:28:28,341 --> 01:28:39,182
Even if we're talking about something like CTV or covenants or proposals that have been around for five plus years, people are saying, why are you pushing this?

1326
01:28:39,182 --> 01:28:40,142
What is the urgency?

1327
01:28:40,541 --> 01:28:47,862
And so I don't think anyone is saying that right now there is urgency for us to do something.

1328
01:28:48,381 --> 01:29:01,702
What we're saying is we've seen the trajectory of Bitcoin becoming slower and slower to react and be able to improve itself and that that in and of itself is concerning.

1329
01:29:01,902 --> 01:29:03,421
We're trying to get ahead of the curve.

1330
01:29:03,421 --> 01:29:07,902
We're trying to be prepared and to not be caught by surprise.

1331
01:29:08,222 --> 01:29:13,741
So I think everyone gets to work on whatever they want to in Bitcoin.

1332
01:29:14,142 --> 01:29:25,421
And certainly some of this stuff may be distracting to some people, but I can tell you for sure there are plenty of protocol developers who don't care at all about quantum and they're not going to spend any of their time working on it.

1333
01:29:25,421 --> 01:29:26,222
And that's fine.

1334
01:29:26,222 --> 01:29:28,662
And I don't think we're saying that they need to.

1335
01:29:28,662 --> 01:29:33,821
I think the people who care about it should work on it and those who don't continue working on whatever interests them.

1336
01:29:34,222 --> 01:29:43,061
So like I've said, I don't think that we're going to have a cryptographically relevant quantum computer in the next few years.

1337
01:29:43,501 --> 01:29:57,342
But I think this is a weird balancing act and that if something happens where the time frame speeds up with quantum computing development and we get caught by surprise.

1338
01:29:57,381 --> 01:30:16,981
And when I say by surprise, I mean, if we don't see it coming at least a few years away, preferably five plus years away and come to a consensus that it's going to be a problem in five years or so, that's when I think very bad things will happen if Bitcoin cannot react in sufficient time.

1339
01:30:18,181 --> 01:30:20,462
Robin, go ahead and then we'll finish with Martin.

1340
01:30:21,462 --> 01:30:27,262
I just wanted to add that if you really want to be on the absolute safe side, just use a hash key.

1341
01:30:27,702 --> 01:30:40,142
And then if the quantum apocalypse becomes a reality, then you can go to Slipstream and mine your transaction in private and then it will never hit the public mempool.

1342
01:30:40,142 --> 01:30:45,061
And as long as Slipstream will not rip you off, then you will be absolutely safe.

1343
01:30:45,462 --> 01:30:49,181
TBH, Robin, I think that that handles like 10% of the problem.

1344
01:30:49,181 --> 01:30:56,662
Like, theoretically, if this day were to come, like Satoshi's coins being liquidated would probably be a much bigger issue that would affect all holders.

1345
01:30:56,662 --> 01:30:57,741
Do you have a response to that?

1346
01:30:59,902 --> 01:31:05,301
Well, I mean, should we optimize for such things?

1347
01:31:05,301 --> 01:31:13,181
Like what, like just the theoretical scenario that Satoshi would come back and just wanted to dump all his coins.

1348
01:31:13,181 --> 01:31:14,342
Would we want to stop him?

1349
01:31:14,902 --> 01:31:15,861
I think we should not.

1350
01:31:15,861 --> 01:31:20,621
So I think it's just part of the protocol and we should leave it as it is.

1351
01:31:20,621 --> 01:31:31,542
And we should not change the rules just because there is like BlackRock or somebody being concerned about Satoshi's coins getting turned into a bug bounty for quantum computers.

1352
01:31:31,582 --> 01:31:44,542
I think it's like we are starting to entangle like the economics of investing in Bitcoin into like the engineering of Bitcoin.

1353
01:31:44,542 --> 01:31:46,181
I think that's always a very bad idea.

1354
01:31:46,181 --> 01:31:48,301
So I think we should not care about that at all.

1355
01:31:49,821 --> 01:31:51,981
I think that's going to be a tough sell, but I hear you.

1356
01:31:51,981 --> 01:31:53,142
Martin, go ahead.

1357
01:31:53,262 --> 01:31:54,821
Yeah, just something everybody here can do.

1358
01:31:54,821 --> 01:32:04,902
I think probably at least half the room are pretty sophisticated programmers is if you go to quantum.ibm.com, you get 10 minutes of free quantum compute time every month.

1359
01:32:05,421 --> 01:32:09,061
And the way quantum computers work is they basically run instantly.

1360
01:32:09,381 --> 01:32:11,662
So, you know, 10 minutes is actually a long time.

1361
01:32:12,022 --> 01:32:15,142
And you could also pay if you so desire.

1362
01:32:15,142 --> 01:32:17,381
And I've done that and it's not too expensive.

1363
01:32:17,782 --> 01:32:25,301
And everybody here could understand the thousand lines or 500 lines of code that it would take to run a true fully true quantum shores.

1364
01:32:25,462 --> 01:32:26,902
Right now, you cannot do that.

1365
01:32:26,902 --> 01:32:29,381
As I mentioned, it's too complicated for quantum computers to run.

1366
01:32:29,741 --> 01:32:33,142
You could do a quantum inspired sort of half quantum shores.

1367
01:32:33,142 --> 01:32:46,861
And right now, the biggest number, me and my team, mostly my girlfriend, have been able to get the biggest number we can get factored as a biprime is in the kind of five or six digit range.

1368
01:32:47,262 --> 01:32:53,861
So, you know, obviously the state of the art in integer factorizations in several hundred numbers.

1369
01:32:55,022 --> 01:33:04,181
So 250, I forget exactly what the record is right now, but we're very, very, very, very far along away from a quantum computer being useful or operational.

1370
01:33:04,501 --> 01:33:06,262
You can run smaller algorithms on them.

1371
01:33:06,262 --> 01:33:11,702
So I would say, you know, don't make this like some intangible theoretical problem.

1372
01:33:12,022 --> 01:33:13,861
Just start programming on these things.

1373
01:33:14,301 --> 01:33:15,741
They're up and running right now.

1374
01:33:15,741 --> 01:33:24,181
It's not that hard to go write code on them and you'll come to the same conclusion as me, which is these machines are really pathetic and, you know, they have a ways to go.

1375
01:33:24,181 --> 01:33:28,301
And then in three years or two years, if they're a little bit better, you can get some telemetry on.

1376
01:33:28,301 --> 01:33:32,902
OK, well, they're advancing at this kind of rate, assuming they can even accelerate advancing.

1377
01:33:33,181 --> 01:33:39,381
You know, once you can factor a 20 digit number on a quantum computer, then you say, oh, well, hold on.

1378
01:33:39,381 --> 01:33:46,301
We're getting to a point where, you know, another log order and then, you know, you know, well, another log order gets you to state of the art.

1379
01:33:46,462 --> 01:33:49,022
So, you know, that's the good time to worry right now.

1380
01:33:49,022 --> 01:33:50,941
These computers can't factor much of anything.

1381
01:33:50,941 --> 01:33:51,941
So try it.

1382
01:33:51,941 --> 01:33:58,582
You know, if it's a theoretical worry, go make it a practical worry and understand the state of the art in quantum right now.

1383
01:33:58,741 --> 01:34:03,941
The cloud system makes it so easy to do that for free or for a couple hundred dollars.

1384
01:34:04,582 --> 01:34:08,902
You can try every single quantum computer other than the ones captive within, say, say, a Google.

1385
01:34:10,381 --> 01:34:13,782
Awesome, I loved this space.

1386
01:34:13,782 --> 01:34:17,102
Thank you guys so much all for participating.

1387
01:34:17,621 --> 01:34:22,782
Yeah, lots of amazing takes from so many interesting people, some of my favorite people in Bitcoin.

1388
01:34:22,782 --> 01:34:26,821
So thank you, Paul and LayerTwo Labs.

1389
01:34:26,821 --> 01:34:29,142
Thank you guys so much for hosting.

1390
01:34:29,142 --> 01:34:31,462
Do you have any final thoughts?

1391
01:34:34,501 --> 01:34:36,861
I just think this is the second one of two.

1392
01:34:36,902 --> 01:34:42,421
So I think we're going to keep we're going to keep trying to do this probably every other week on Friday.

1393
01:34:42,421 --> 01:34:43,782
So stay tuned.

1394
01:34:46,421 --> 01:34:47,741
Thanks, everybody, for joining.

1395
01:34:48,061 --> 01:34:52,662
Thanks to all of our guests for joining the space on short notice and all of our speakers that joined.

1396
01:34:53,181 --> 01:35:00,621
Thanks especially to Isabel for moderating this debate and bringing her insight, as well as Enduro for hosting the space on such short notice.

1397
01:35:01,301 --> 01:35:02,421
Thanks, everybody, for joining.

1398
01:35:02,421 --> 01:35:06,381
And go ahead and follow both LayerTwo Labs and Enduro for more exciting spaces like this.

1399
01:35:06,381 --> 01:35:07,102
Have a good evening.

1400
01:35:07,861 --> 01:35:08,582
Thanks, guys.