Here's hoping that my stock for D-Wave ends up being worth something.
Quantum computing seems super cool, but I've been a little skeptical of it actually ever yielding anything useful. I would love to be wrong, it seems neat, and I have read through a few books on the subject and played with simulators, so I'm not completely talking out of my ass here, but quantum as a whole has kind of felt like vaporware to me.
As I said, I have stock in D-Wave, obviously it would be in my best interest for quantum to end up as cool as it seems.
One thing I find rather amazing about all of this is the degree to which the Bitcoin community has tried, for years, to claim that quantum computers will be another other than a complete break.
Sure, it takes a pretty nice quantum computer or a pretty good algorithm or a degree of malice on the part of miners to break pay-to-script-hash if your wallet has the right properties, but that seems like a pretty weak excuse for the fact that the entire scheme is broken, completely, by QC.
Does there even exist a credible post-quantum proof protocol that could be used to “rescue” P2SH wallets?
Maybe it's a good time to start promoting my 5 year old, lightweight, hand-crafted, battle-tested, quantum-resistant blockchain: https://capitalisk.com/
It's about 5000 lines of custom code. Crypto signature library written from scratch.
I worked at a quantum computing company that builds superconducting QC chips (so, not really applicable to one of the “bombshells” from the article). My team was designing the software stack which allows to control the QC, run quantum jobs/algorithms, and calibrate the parameters.
I’ve made two attempts to explain the work we’ve been doing and to explain the current realistic state of the industry:
The company I left a few months ago is planning its IPO this year. Like almost all other quantum companies, it’s gonna be a SPAC merger, not a pure IPO. Those traded companies mentioned in the other comments are mostly SPACs as well.
If they're going public I imagine they already sell some kind of QC chips. But, like, who buys them? Yesterday there was a new paper [1] that shows how Shor's algorithm could break realistic encryptions with as little as 10,000 qubits (instead of millions), but as far as I know quantum hardware is still orders of magnitude below even that target. So how big can the market actually be? Shipping to universities or other QC companies for playing around with some actual hardware is nice and all, but in the end someone will be left holding the bag. There is zero profit to be made at the end of the chain.
My mid-sized US city (Chattanooga) has recently announced a partnership with Vanderbilt and EPB (local govt-owned fiber ISP) which creates a Quantum Computing Research Facility [$,$$$,$$$,$$$] [1].
As locals are covering this news, I keep having this thought that nobody (perhaps less than a few?) even knows what those words mean (certainly not me). You speak confidently and clearly enough that I'm incline to believe it's kind of real.
So thanks for sharing your P[0]V with this dumbass (former data center) electrician (me). All the "Quantum"-phrasing represents to me is more local job opportunities.
>>@3m27s: "Quantum computing is basically trying to treat some isolated piece of the universe to behave slightly less randomly, for a very brief timeframe, so that it is useful to you when you try to solve some problem."
>>@20m: [simple flow-chart of interacting with Quantum Processing Unit]
>>@final.words: [paraphrasing] "Right now you buy a quantum computer simply to research quantum computers. Ours is $14MM"
To put this in context, we've had a streak of improvements to Shor's algorithm that have put the horizon much closer. In 2022, people from Microsoft estimated that it would take more than 10M (physical) qubits to implement factoring. We're now standing at a 1000x improvement. It's still years away for sure, but who can be unhappy with all that progress?
This site is almost impossible to read on mobile unless you have good vision. Normally I can just hit the button in my phone browser to read it in reader mode, but this site doesn’t support that either. It’s a shame.
I am surprised that in 2026 more websites don’t seem so concerned about responsive design, especially when the goal is to read the content.
Note that. The primary mechanism in error-correction paper is "selective quantum observations". It means we don't need to use all available resource but selectively error-correct. Similar idea is also recently explored in quantum chaos, whereby system is still chaotic but localisation can be observed in the ancillary system.
I'm 6 days late but if anyone reads this: what does it mean we should "upgrade now to quantum-resistant cryptography" ? If I'm using RSA am I supposed to switch to something else?
26 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 51.5 ms ] threadDiscussion on the Google one,
Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclosing quantum vulnerabilities responsibly
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47582418
Quantum computing seems super cool, but I've been a little skeptical of it actually ever yielding anything useful. I would love to be wrong, it seems neat, and I have read through a few books on the subject and played with simulators, so I'm not completely talking out of my ass here, but quantum as a whole has kind of felt like vaporware to me.
As I said, I have stock in D-Wave, obviously it would be in my best interest for quantum to end up as cool as it seems.
V. Vedral, A. Barenco, and A. Ekert, Quantum net- works for elementary arithmetic operations, Physi- cal Review A 54, 147 (1996).
Sure, it takes a pretty nice quantum computer or a pretty good algorithm or a degree of malice on the part of miners to break pay-to-script-hash if your wallet has the right properties, but that seems like a pretty weak excuse for the fact that the entire scheme is broken, completely, by QC.
Does there even exist a credible post-quantum proof protocol that could be used to “rescue” P2SH wallets?
It's about 5000 lines of custom code. Crypto signature library written from scratch.
I’ve made two attempts to explain the work we’ve been doing and to explain the current realistic state of the industry:
1. A talk at PyCon: https://youtu.be/tT1YLP5T71Y
2. A free ebook “ Quantum Computing For Software Engineers” https://leanpub.com/quantum-computing-for-software-engineers
The company I left a few months ago is planning its IPO this year. Like almost all other quantum companies, it’s gonna be a SPAC merger, not a pure IPO. Those traded companies mentioned in the other comments are mostly SPACs as well.
[1] https://arxiv.org/html/2603.28627v1
My mid-sized US city (Chattanooga) has recently announced a partnership with Vanderbilt and EPB (local govt-owned fiber ISP) which creates a Quantum Computing Research Facility [$,$$$,$$$,$$$] [1].
As locals are covering this news, I keep having this thought that nobody (perhaps less than a few?) even knows what those words mean (certainly not me). You speak confidently and clearly enough that I'm incline to believe it's kind of real.
So thanks for sharing your P[0]V with this dumbass (former data center) electrician (me). All the "Quantum"-phrasing represents to me is more local job opportunities.
>>@3m27s: "Quantum computing is basically trying to treat some isolated piece of the universe to behave slightly less randomly, for a very brief timeframe, so that it is useful to you when you try to solve some problem."
>>@20m: [simple flow-chart of interacting with Quantum Processing Unit]
>>@final.words: [paraphrasing] "Right now you buy a quantum computer simply to research quantum computers. Ours is $14MM"
>>@final.meme: <https://i.imgur.com/WKaN3mL.png> [2]
>>Q&A further listening recommendation: <https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/05/13/275-...>
>>"If you learn the examples on <https://quantum.country> you will be among top 1% of QC newhires."
[0] that quantum computing is "kind of real", which is how it always feels when being-described
[1] <https://www.vanderbilt.edu/chancellor/initiatives-and-outrea...>
[2] explain yourself (you really think you can include this slide in your presentation and then not talk about its implication(s)?!)
the moment i read it i immediately thought about Rakhim, then i checked your username and indeed it was you. Fun!
Breaking encryption is illegal. Making encryption is difficult to profit from.
Other than that, what’s the value add?
ms paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.07629
I am surprised that in 2026 more websites don’t seem so concerned about responsive design, especially when the goal is to read the content.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22169v3