Google’s quantum computer could break Bitcoin in two ways
Google announced a new quantum computing chip called Willow, and doomsayers already think it could break Bitcoin in at least two ways. According to Google, Willow can solve in five minutes a problem that would take most supercomputers 10 septillion years to solve. Critics say that this power could overtake Bitcoin’s hashrate in a matter of minutes, rewrite the Bitcoin blockchain, or even steal Satoshi Nakamoto’s coins. The price of bitcoin (BTC) dipped slightly yesterday around the time of Google’s 4pm post-market announcement and over the past 24 hours, remains around 3% lower. Willow reportedly reduces the rate at which qubits “leak” information to the outside, non-quantum environment, improving the chip’s ability to retain information needed for quantum computations. This improves the new chip’s ability to remain quantum instead of becoming a classical chip after too much data leakage. With its breakthrough, Google moved quantum computing one step closer to becoming...