BITCOIN

RolandFlagg

I was just going to post that link.

Page 4 they show why Bitcoin is better than Gold.

Thrugelmir

darren232002 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

Really couldn't have put it better myself.

Go on then - just for banter - what value does Bitcoin add to society? (Real value that normal people would benefit from, not some hypothetical at some point in the future collapse of fiat or pretending your average Nigerian is eternally grateful to Bitcoins existence). 

About 5 pages back I was having an argument with someone because posters leave and then other posters come in and ask the same old questions which makes it incredibly frustrating having to explain everything all over again. 

Even after eight centuries of financial folly there'll always continue to be further ones. That's human nature. Confirmation bias is extremely common amongst investors. 

chucknorris

Thrugelmir said:

darren232002 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

Really couldn't have put it better myself.

Go on then - just for banter - what value does Bitcoin add to society? (Real value that normal people would benefit from, not some hypothetical at some point in the future collapse of fiat or pretending your average Nigerian is eternally grateful to Bitcoins existence). 

About 5 pages back I was having an argument with someone because posters leave and then other posters come in and ask the same old questions which makes it incredibly frustrating having to explain everything all over again. 

Even after eight centuries of financial folly there'll always continue to be further ones. That's human nature. Confirmation bias is extremely common amongst investors. 

Thrugelmir said:

darren232002 said:

bugbyte_2 said:

Really couldn't have put it better myself.

Go on then - just for banter - what value does Bitcoin add to society? (Real value that normal people would benefit from, not some hypothetical at some point in the future collapse of fiat or pretending your average Nigerian is eternally grateful to Bitcoins existence). 

About 5 pages back I was having an argument with someone because posters leave and then other posters come in and ask the same old questions which makes it incredibly frustrating having to explain everything all over again. 

Even after eight centuries of financial folly there'll always continue to be further ones. That's human nature. Confirmation bias is extremely common amongst investors. 

Sorry I am being a bit lazy (I could probably find a post that clearly stated your opinion), but what is your opinion of Bitcoin? Mine is that I want nothing to do with it, it can't possibly add anything to my portfolio, apart from some risk (if I speculated too much), but I just don't see the point (for someone in my position).

User232002

Malthusian said:

Providing that the first person to invent a strong enough quantum computer is a bro who then immediately uses it to strengthen Bitcoin's encryption before someone else invents a quantum computer and steals it. Someone like the Russian or Chinese or US governments. Or the mafia. Or anyone with more incentive to steal and/or destroy cryptocurrency than to protect it.

Oh wow.

You do realise that you don't need to have a quantum computer in order to stop a quantum computer right? What matters is the encryption algorithm and, in this realm of mathematics, it appears to be a lot easier to encrypt rather than decrypt. Its a pretty trivial task to create a combinatoric problem that would take years (decades or centuries even) of CPU time to solve (Travelling Salesman; P v NP Complete problems) and I'm pretty confident that quantum resistant encryption will be here way before functioning quantum computers.

Also, quantum computers aren't something that you can build in your back yard or garage. So its a large university department or state sponsored machine. The mafia ain't building one.

I find it amazingly arrogant that you continue to post with such conviction and authority on these topics when you clearly know so little about them. 

adindas

Vitalik Buterin's View on quantum supremacy and Crypto

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vitalik-buterin-google-quantum-supremacy-213540740.html

Malthusian

darren232002 said:

Oh wow.

You do realise that you don't need to have a quantum computer in order to stop a quantum computer right? What matters is the encryption algorithm and, in this realm of mathematics, it appears to be a lot easier to encrypt rather than decrypt. Its a pretty trivial task to create a combinatoric problem that would take years (decades or centuries even) of CPU time to solve (Travelling Salesman; P v NP Complete problems) and I'm pretty confident that quantum resistant encryption will be here way before functioning quantum computers.

This is equivalent to saying that you don't need to worry about this new-fangled gunpowder thing because you can just build a thicker motte and bailey. Quantum computing is a game-changing technology that we currently know next to nothing about, like Singularity AI. If you think you know all about it and what it can do that means you don't.

In any case the hypothetical scenario was not just the invention of the quantum computing equivalent of the Spectrum, but a quantum computer that could crack both Bitcoin and (by extension) banking and government databases.

I find it amazingly arrogant that you continue to post with such conviction and authority on these topics when you clearly know so little about them.

The world is an amazing place. Knowledge is power and that means knowledge of crypto cargo cult jargon and the El Salvadorean economy has the power to make number go up.

lozzy1965

adindas said:

Vitalik Buterin's View on quantum supremacy and Crypto

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/vitalik-buterin-google-quantum-supremacy-213540740.html

Nice interview from someone with no particular axe to grind either way on crypto   I mean, the creator of ETH won't have a bias will he?

I particularly liked this quote:
"It proves that the ability to make a big boom exists. What it does not prove is the ability to harness that big boom to create things that are useful."
Meant as a reference to quantum computing, but could equally be said about all crypto at the moment?

Now let me look up that definition of irony again...

User232002

Malthusian said:

This is equivalent to saying that you don't need to worry about this new-fangled gunpowder thing because you can just build a thicker motte and bailey. Quantum computing is a game-changing technology that we currently know next to nothing about, like Singularity AI. If you think you know all about it and what it can do that means you don't.

In any case the hypothetical scenario was not just the invention of the quantum computing equivalent of the Spectrum, but a quantum computer that could crack both Bitcoin and (by extension) banking and government databases.

Oh, so you're doubling down... Unfortunately, as with many people who have no training in the subject, you lack even the knowledge to understand why your viewpoint is horrendously flawed. You're not a doctor just because you watched a few episodes of House.

It is somewhat easy to make a problem scale quicker than a computers ability to solve it. The basic jist of current cryptographic methods is just that the number of combinations scales quicker than a computers ability to check every one; this just boils down to the fact that a factorial function increases much quicker than a linear one. This is the P v NP issue that I referenced earlier. There's no reason to suspect that basic relationship will change when quantum computing comes along; that is to say that whilst quantum computers will make mince meat of current 128 and 256 bit encryption, its not far fetched to expect encryption techniques to grow at a quicker rate. There are already encryption techniques out there right now that are thought to be quantum resistant.

As usual, there are real nuanced problems that QC might present to Bitcoin, but you've managed to miss every one of them by a mile.

Malthusian said:

The world is an amazing place. Knowledge is power and that means knowledge of crypto cargo cult jargon and the El Salvadorean economy has the power to make number go up.

In my third year of my (second) undergraduate degree, I took elective modules in quantum mechanics and graphs/networks (including error correcting codes and obviously the TS / P v NP complete problems). Of course, limits of functions and how some functions grow differently than others is your basic first/second year mathematics stuff too. Lastly, I took a short online postgraduate course in the theory of quantum computing. 

Would you like to share your background on this matter?

HCIMbtw

Malthusian out here bringing a spoon to a knife fight

Absolute shambles

Malthusian

darren232002 said:

In my third year of my (second) undergraduate degree, I took elective modules in quantum mechanics and graphs/networks (including error correcting codes and obviously the TS / P v NP complete problems). Of course, limits of functions and how some functions grow differently than others is your basic first/second year mathematics stuff too. Lastly, I took a short online postgraduate course in the theory of quantum computing. 

Would you like to share your background on this matter?

Sure thing bro. My background is that I'm not the one sitting on a 40% loss while real assets are only 10% off all-time highs.

HCIMbtw said:

Malthusian out here bringing a spoon to a knife fight

Absolute shambles

Interesting fact: your chances of surviving a knife fight unharmed are much higher if you bring a spoon than a knife. Can you guess why?

Because the guy with the spoon will run away. The guy with the knife starts with a 50% chance of getting stabbed.

Likewise I'm happy to lose a tangential argument about whether quantum computing could feasibly break Bitcoin encryption - which I have, as Darren is completely correct about the inherent nature of it being harder to pick a lock than make one - because I'm still on the outside of the bear pit where crypto bros scramble to take each others' money while banging on about how many degrees they have.