Google sent shockwaves around the internet last month when it was claimed the search giant had built a quantum computer able to solve formerly impossible mathematical calculations–with some fearing bitcoin could be at risk.
Details of Google's so-called "quantum supremacy," meaning it can solve calculations impossible with traditional computers, were posted to a Nasa website before being deleted, it was claimed by the Financial Times, a business newspaper.
Google's quantum supremacy could mean it is able to perform in 200 seconds what would take a powerful computer 10,000 years and potentially mean bitcoin, and the encryption that underpins it, could be broken.
Bitcoin, cryptography, and encryption rely on complex mathematical problems and the fundamentals provide the basis of the internet and digital communication trust.
A powerful enough computer, similar to Google's quantum computer, could solve these classical equations quickly enough to crack not only bitcoin but also the encryption that the internet is built on.
An explosion in bitcoin investors and the bitcoin price over recent years have made many worried that their newfound crypto-based wealth could be under threat from these powerful quantum computers.
However, steps can be taken to prevent the likes of Google or any other quantum computer breaking into bitcoin and digital communication.
"Cryptocurrencies can be updated with quantum resistant tech," said Charles Hayter, chief executive of bitcoin and cryptocurrency data website, CryptoCompare. "This is just a continuation of the age old arms race between crackers and enciphers."
It would appear Google is still some way away from building a quantum computer that could be a threat to bitcoin or other encryption.
"Google's supercomputer currently has 53 qubits," said Dragos Ilie, a quantum computing and encryption researcher at Imperial College London.
Qubits, or quantum bits, are the basic unit of quantum information which use the properties of a quantum system, such as the polarization of a photon or the spin of an electron, where as traditional computers store and process data as a series of '1's and '0's.
"In order to have any effect on bitcoin or most or most other financial systems it would take at least about 1500 qubits and the system must allow for the entanglement of all of them," Ilie said.
Google may not even be as far along as thought, with subsequent reports suggesting the original post was removed from Nasa's website because it had not been confirmed.
Meanwhile, scaling quantum computers is "a huge challenge," according to Ilie.
"As you add more qubits the system becomes more and more unstable ... [though] researchers can try different approaches for solving these issues so maybe there are ways to mitigate these problems but right now we are quite far from breaking bitcoin."
In short, "don't dump your bitcoins yet," Ilie added.
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