[ExI] You'd better sell your bitcoins

[John Clark]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 8:29 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:


> * >> Nobody can pinpoint the exact day a quantum computer capable of
>> running Shor’s algorithm will become operational,*
>
>
> * > And I don't need to.*
>

*You do if you insist on waiting till the last possible second to sell your
Bitcoins. If you insist on wringing every last cent out of your Bitcoin
investment then your economic timing needs to be perfect. Is your timing
perfect?*


>
> *>the introduction of said computer might not happen within any predefined
> timeframe, thus meaning that any bet against it might*

* never be judgeable, I might be willing to bet against such an event.*
>

*Maybe. There is a possibility that the timeframe given by one of the
world's greatest experts in quantum computers is wrong and your intuition
is right, thus there is a non-zero probability that you won't go broke. But
are you really willing to bet that your opinion about quantum computers is
better than his?  It doesn't seem like a very good bet to me. *


> * > When - and if - said computer comes into existence, then it may be
> time to reevaluate continued holding of Bitcoin based on this metric.*
>

*Are you kidding? At that point it will be far far too late.  *

* > But not until then.*


*Well… Enjoy your money while you have it.  *


> * > As someone else mentioned, Bitcoin may be upgraded to use quantum
> cryptography by then, negating the threat.*


*That's not even on the horizon. Quantum Cryptography is as secure as the
laws of physics, however you'd need a completely new Internet for that with
hardware (not just software) that works on entirely different principles
and is very expensive and temperamental. **Currently that is not even close
to being practical for large scale use. I'd be willing to bet that the AI
Singularity will happen well before that. *

*Maybe you meant quantum resistant algorithms, they are possible and
semi-practical but it would mean that each bitcoin transaction would
require even more energy and computation that it already does, and Bitcoin
is already extraordinarily wasteful. And the transition between the
elliptic curve encryption that Bitcoin currently uses to one of the quantum
resistant algorithms would be very difficult to achieve if you wanted
backward compatibility; it would be especially difficult to protect coins
that have been spent even once because then their public key would have
been already exposed. *

*And there's another thing, some believe that these new algorithms are
resistant to attacks by quantum computers but that has never been
mathematically proven. So as I've said before, when people see that quantum
computers have produced millions of Bitcoin bankruptcies they're going to
be very suspicious of any cryptocurrency regardless of what algorithm they
use. *

*In summary I don't see how cryptocurrency has a future. *

*John K Clark  *
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