BITCOIN

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.

User232002

Malthusian said:

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.

Firstly, I'm just going to start quoting myself;

darren232002 said:

Tell you what, lets say you put $4k each in to BTC and SPY after their covid crashes near the absolute bottom. That $4k in the SPY got up to like $7500 or something and after the 5% drawdown is now at like $7200 for a $300 drawdown. Meanwhile, your $4k in BTC got up to $70k but is now sitting at only $38k for a $32k drawdown. Wow, I really wish I'd have bought the SPY instead because the BTC drawdown was 100x the SPY! Like I keep saying; its a math test.

Same old, same old.

Secondly, 




Does this look like an asset that is crashing to you?

Thirdly,

Malthusian said:

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.

What a sad state of discourse that when discussing something on the cutting edge of science, where technical knowledge and ability is presumably a prerequisite, that you think highlighting study and theoretical knowledge of those topics is simply 'banging on about how many degrees' I have.

What was it you said? Knowledge is power, right? We can let others be the judge of whose opinion should carry more weight on the matter.

HCIMbtw

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.

I didn't need to guess.. I knew why.. bro. 

gravlax

Interesting how bitcoin discussion provokes polar opposite views. You can view bitcoin, crypto, defi as at least interesting enough as potential game changers to allocate a very small amount of your portfolio into the area, even 1%.

There has been some research, morningstar I think, that illustrated a 3% holding of bitcoin with rebalancing provided boosted overall portfolio returns due to its volatility and added diversification of asset return correlation. The message was you don't have to go all in or take undue risks to catch a worthwhile upside.

The alternative is to avoid altogether because you've taken the position it's a scam or whatever, so would rather not risk anything at all on it. If someone is very risk averse, or their situation requires a conservative approach, this makes total sense. But for anyone with a reasonable risk tolerance such as holding mostly equities, they could even remain a sceptic and still hold a little bitcoin. 

Zola.

gravlax said:

Interesting how bitcoin discussion provokes polar opposite views. You can view bitcoin, crypto, defi as at least interesting enough as potential game changers to allocate a very small amount of your portfolio into the area, even 1%.

There has been some research, morningstar I think, that illustrated a 3% holding of bitcoin with rebalancing provided boosted overall portfolio returns due to its volatility and added diversification of asset return correlation. The message was you don't have to go all in or take undue risks to catch a worthwhile upside.

The alternative is to avoid altogether because you've taken the position it's a scam or whatever, so would rather not risk anything at all on it. If someone is very risk averse, or their situation requires a conservative approach, this makes total sense. But for anyone with a reasonable risk tolerance such as holding mostly equities, they could even remain a sceptic and still hold a little bitcoin. 

So true... and that fact doesn't seem to dawn on the skeptics who like to keep droning on in this thread. 

Aegis

gravlax said:

Interesting how bitcoin discussion provokes polar opposite views. You can view bitcoin, crypto, defi as at least interesting enough as potential game changers to allocate a very small amount of your portfolio into the area, even 1%.

There has been some research, morningstar I think, that illustrated a 3% holding of bitcoin with rebalancing provided boosted overall portfolio returns due to its volatility and added diversification of asset return correlation. The message was you don't have to go all in or take undue risks to catch a worthwhile upside.

The alternative is to avoid altogether because you've taken the position it's a scam or whatever, so would rather not risk anything at all on it. If someone is very risk averse, or their situation requires a conservative approach, this makes total sense. But for anyone with a reasonable risk tolerance such as holding mostly equities, they could even remain a sceptic and still hold a little bitcoin. 

The issue with doing that research is that it is based on what we already know, i.e. that bitcoin has grown enormously fast and been very volatile.  It will have absolutely no estimate as to where the price should be, nor what the volatility should be, so the calculation will not take into account the scenario that the price could completely collapse at any point and never get back to current levels, at which point no amount of pound cost averaging will result in anything other than a loss.

In terms of assuming that even skeptics could hold bitcoin because it would only be a small allocation, that sounds good at outset, but if I'm not persuaded that it's a decent future investment, I won't ever allocate anything to it.  It's like how I won't pay 1% extra a year for investment management that can't justify itself.  It seems like a small amount in isolation, but if I put in 1% now and it half in value, then next year I need to put in another 0.5% to top it up, and if the same happens again, there's another 0.5%, and the initial 1% has become 2% because of rebalancing (assuming no growth on the rest of the holdings).  There are a huge number of investments that I could hold, and if I allocated 1% to all of them, I'd quickly run out of capital.  Essentially there are plenty of investment opportunities that, to me, make a lot more sense than bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies, so there's no reason for me to allocate to this (other than the claim that "it's gone up by X%", which just doesn't matter to me if the future growth only makes sense if you assume a mania.