Ethereum is the world computer. The universal platform for cryptocurrencies, blockchain apps, stablecoins, and decentralized technologies.

Another common q: why aren't @ethereum or @bitcoin upgrading to post-quantum algorithms if quantum computers are so close to production-ready?

The short answer is that they're trying very slowly, but the long answer involves a lot of conflicting incentives

A quantum base layer to qubit-accelerate and pq-encrypt every wallet, contract, and network | https://t.me/+Pbld47s3BO44YmUx | https://discord.gg/BuFPTaMSht

Miners & validators hate this. That means they can't store as many transactions on their existing hardware, & checking the blockchain for liars takes longer, meaning they have to charge more per transaction

Holders also hate paying more money for things they might not need

The first quantum computing attacks will cost 8 hours of cluster time to mine a private key and close to $20k of energy costs, meaning that small wallets won't be targets

But the biggest wallets hold more than 70% of the assets! 
Binance alone holds $25B in $BTC in one wallet 😱

We often get the question: "Aren't quantum 🖥️ hackers nbd b/c ofc they're gonna steal Satoshi's 🔑s 1st & drain his 👛, so we'll know right away?"

This is a good guess, but we think a group spending $2 billion on a commercial quantum cluster will be a little more careful.

If these wallets get hacked & drained, that will create a lot of chaos for all holders, not just the big ones. But as we've discussed before, there may be years of quiet attacks before anyone notices the funds were stolen specifically by quantum hackers!

If these wallets get hacked & drained, that will create a lot of chaos for all holders, not just the big ones. But as we've discussed before, there may be years of quiet attacks before anyone notices the funds were stolen specifically by quantum hackers!

https://warpcast.com/quipnetwork.eth/0x06b7ad4c

That's why we're building pq vaults on every chain today: you won't know when you got pwned

If you want to hard fork & refund each victim, how do you know which wallets were hit? What about the legit payors who get rewound?

https://ethresear.ch/t/how-to-hard-fork-to-save-most-users-funds-in-a-quantum-emergency/18901

Of course, protocol devs know this, which is why they quietly sit on their hands. Even @vitalik.eth says we shouldn't worry about quantum hackers until we see a big hack, and then we can rewind the chain.

But as we discussed before, it's not so simple:

Of course, protocol devs know this, which is why they quietly sit on their hands. Even @vitalik.eth says we shouldn't worry about quantum hackers until we see a big hack, and then we can rewind the chain.

But as we discussed before, it's not so simple:
https://warpcast.com/quipnetwork.eth/0x84e75366

That's why we think we really need a third-party exclusively focused on getting individual wallets, contracts, & infra providers to upgrade to a post-quantum primitive.

All the incentives are completely wrong to do a wholesale upgrade, and it increases complexity for everyone

That's why we're building a simple wallet wrapper on every chain whether it supports smart contracts or not:
 
- First upgrade the wallets who need it
- Then upgrade the contract ABIs
- Next upgrade the miners & validators
- Last upgrade the networks

That's why we're building a simple wallet wrapper on every chain whether it supports smart contracts or not:
 
- First upgrade the wallets who need it
- Then upgrade the contract ABIs
- Next upgrade the miners & validators
- Last upgrade the networks

https://quip.network

Part of the challenge with upgrading a blockchain to a post-quantum algorithm is the extra storage and/or compute required over existing hash algos

Rather than storing 128 bytes, you might have to store 2Kb or more per signature! And the signature may take longer to compute.