Neptune Cash Community
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Neptune Cash Community
@CodewordNeptune
Private money. Programmable. Post-quantum. Neptune Cash (NPT) is grassroots, scalable & surveillance-resistant L1 cryptocurrency. https://t.co/aihfvHP65s
@CraigGidney @dallairedemers If one considers the strategic advantages of a high-performance quantum computer, along with the vast resources and priorities of the national security apparatus, how likely is it that the NSA is not already operating such a machine in its facilities?
Ok I just want to add one thing. Folks, for state actors, the value of having a quantum computer is massively higher if you DON’T tell people you have a quantum computer. Exploiting Bitcoin is a parlor trick. Exploiting the world’s communications is where the value is at.
Alpha is live. After nearly a decade, the first feature-complete privacy stack on Ethereum is here. Developers can now build apps and contracts with ground-up customizable privacy, from execution to settlement. aztec.network/blog/announcin…
In 2026 you can get a lot done without revenue, which is a good thing for research (*some* types of research!) but this requires a certain willingness to engage in hype. That’s how I feel about this part of the paper.
@CraigGidney @dallairedemers If one considers the strategic advantages of a high-performance quantum computer, along with the vast resources and priorities of the national security apparatus, how likely is it that the NSA is not already operating such a machine in its facilities?
🚨 Google has sounded the quantum alarm 🚨 Today, they released groundbreaking progress towards breaking crypto using a quantum computer. TLDR - Existing cryptography is dead. Mempool attacks are real. We must migrate to post-quantum now. Thread 🧵
What has changed my thinking about the urgency of adding PQC to Bitcoin are the persistent non-linearities in QC progress and the shroud of secrecy underlying this research. When I see exponential progress - estimates of physical qubits dropping by orders of magnitude - this tells me we may not have much of a window between “quantum is on a trajectory to disrupt bitcoin,” and “secp256k1 is broken.” This is compounded by the secrecy and natsec implications, which mean 1) we likely don’t know where the state of the art truly is, and it is likely much further than what we know exists and 2) a CSQC may be developed in stealth mode and drop out of seemingly nowhere. I still think ~10 years is the more likely timeframe, but I assign an uncomfortably high likelihood that we see something disruptive within 5 years. High enough that action within the next 1-2 years is prudent. I don’t see a massive downside to adding PQC to Bitcoin too early. Worst case scenario it either doesn’t get used much or we have to upgrade it later. Both are reasonable trade offs to protect against an existential threat that could materialize without much warning.
Today is a monumentous day for quantum computing and cryptography. Two breakthrough papers just landed (links in next tweet). Both papers improve Shor's algorithm, infamous for cracking RSA and elliptic curve cryptography. The two results compound, optimising separate layers of the quantum stack. The results are shocking. I expect a narrative shift and a further R&D boost toward post-quantum cryptography. The first paper is by Google Quantum AI. They tackle the (logical) Shor algorithm, tailoring it to crack Bitcoin and Ethereum signatures. The algorithm runs on ~1K logical qubits for the 256-bit elliptic curve secp256k1. Due to the low circuit depth, a fast superconducting computer would recover private keys in minutes. I'm grateful to have joined as a late paper co-author, in large part for the chance to interact with experts and the alpha gleaned from internal discussions. The second paper is by a stealthy startup called Oratomic, with ex-Google and prominent Caltech faculty. Their starting point is Google's improvements to the logical quantum circuit. They then apply improvements at the physical layer, with tricks specific to neutral atom quantum computers. The result estimates that 26,000 atomic qubits are sufficient to break 256-bit elliptic curve signatures. This would be roughly a 40x improvement in physical qubit count over previous state-of-the-art. On the flip side, a single Shor run would take ~10 days due to the relatively slow speed of neutral atoms. Below are my key takeaways. As a disclaimer, I am not a quantum expert. Time is needed for the results to be properly vetted. Based on my interactions with the team, I have faith the Google Quantum AI results are conservative. The Oratomic paper is much harder for me to assess, especially because of the use of more exotic qLDPC codes. I will take it with a grain of salt until the dust settles. → q-day: My confidence in q-day by 2032 has shot up significantly. IMO there's at least a 10% chance that by 2032 a quantum computer recovers a secp256k1 ECDSA private key from an exposed public key. While a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer (CRQC) before 2030 still feels unlikely, now is undoubtedly the time to start preparing. → censorship: The Google paper uses a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof to demonstrate the algorithm's existence without leaking actual optimisations. From now on, assume state-of-the-art algorithms will be censored. There may be self-censorship for moral or commercial reasons, or because of government pressure. A blackout in academic publications would be a tell-tale sign. → cracking time: A superconducting quantum computer, the type Google is building, could crack keys in minutes. This is because the optimised quantum circuit is just 100M Toffoli gates, which is surprisingly shallow. (Toffoli gates are hard because they require production of so-called "magic states".) Toffoli gates would consume ~10 microseconds on a superconducting platform, totalling ~1,000 sec of Shor runtime. → latency optimisations: Two latency optimisations bring key cracking time to single-digit minutes. The first parallelises computation across quantum devices. The second involves feeding the pubkey to the quantum computer mid-flight, after a generic setup phase. → fast- and slow-clock: At first approximation there are two families of quantum computers. The fast-clock flavour, which includes superconducting and photonic architectures, runs at roughly 100 kHz. The slow-clock flavour, which includes trapped ion and neutral atom architectures, runs roughly 1,000x slower (~100 Hz, or ~1 week to crack a single key). → qubit count: The size-optimised variant of the algorithm runs on 1,200 logical qubits. On a superconducting computer with surface code error correction that's roughly 500K physical qubits, a 400:1 physical-to-logical ratio. The surface code is conservative, assuming only four-way nearest-neighbour grid connectivity. It was demonstrated last year by Google on a real quantum computer. → future gains: Low-hanging fruit is still being picked, with at least one of the Google optimisations resulting from a surprisingly simple observation. Interestingly, AI was not (yet!) tasked to find optimisations. This was also the first time authors such as Craig Gidney attacked elliptic curves (as opposed to RSA). Shor logical qubit count could plausibly go under 1K soonish. → error correction: The physical-to-logical ratio for superconducting computers could go under 100:1. For superconducting computers that would be mean ~100K physical qubits for a CRQC, two orders of magnitude away from state of the art. Neutral atoms quantum computers are amenable to error correcting codes other than the surface code. While much slower to run, they can bring down the physical to logical qubit ratio closer to 10:1. → Bitcoin PoW: Commercially-viable Bitcoin PoW via Grover's algorithm is not happening any time soon. We're talking decades, possibly centuries away. This observation should help focus the discussion on ECDSA and Schnorr. (Side note: as unofficial Bitcoin security researcher, I still believe Bitcoin PoW is cooked due to the dwindling security budget.) → team quality: The folks at Google Quantum AI are the real deal. Craig Gidney (@CraigGidney) is arguably the world's top quantum circuit optimisooor. Just last year he squeezed 10x out of Shor for RSA, bringing the physical qubit count down from 10M to 1M. Special thanks to the Google team for patiently answering all my newb questions with detailed, fact-based answers. I was expecting some hype, but found none.
Many are wondering "what Google saw" that caused them to revise their post-quantum cryptography transition deadline to 2029 last week. It was this: research.google/blog/safeguard…
