The application of Google’s Quantum Computing Technology could reportedly help to improve the technology which underpins proof-of-stake (PoS) cryptocurrencies.
PoS is a type of consensus algorithm where block creators are randomly chosen with a probability that proportional to their stake, while the algorithm of proof-of-work-based digital currencies uses mining. However, the PoS variant has raised doubts regarding the integrity of random selections.
On October 23, Scott Aaronson, a Quantum Theoretician at the University of Texas at Austin, told Fortune, that Quantum Computing could alleviate PoS-skeptics doubts, as a Quantum Supremacy Experiment could generate certifiably random numbers.
Previously, he wrote on his personal blog:
“A sampling-based quantum supremacy experiment could almost immediately be repurposed to generate bits that can be proven to be random to a skeptical third party (under computational assumptions). This, in turn, has possible applications to proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies and other cryptographic protocols. I’m hopeful that more such applications will be discovered in the near future.” Scott Aaronson
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Scott Aaronson
Likewise, on October 23, Google published the results of its Quantum Supremacy Experiment, which Aaronson peer-reviewed. In the experiment, “Sycamore” — a 54-qubit processor with Quantum Logic Gates, took 200 seconds to sample one instance of a Quantum Circuit a million times.
In contrast, IBM’s supercomputer Summit, which is purportedly the most powerful computer to date, would run such a calculation for 10,000 years.
Google states that its experiment is the first experimental challenge against the extended Church-Turing Thesis, also known as Computability Thesis, which claims that traditional computers can effectively carry out any “reasonable” model of computation.
In a dedicated blog post, Google explained:
“We first ran random simplified circuits from 12 up to 53 qubits, keeping the circuit depth constant. We checked the performance of the quantum computer using classical simulations and compared with a theoretical model. Once we verified that the system was working, we ran random hard circuits with 53 qubits and increasing depth, until reaching the point where classical simulation became infeasible. […] With the first quantum computation that cannot reasonably be emulated on a classical computer, we have opened up a new realm of computing to be explored.”
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Previously, Peter Todd, an ex-Bitcoin Core Developer, poured cold water on fears that recent advances in Quantum Computing could endanger the security of Bitcoin (BTC), which is a proof-of-work-based cryptocurrency.
Thus, Todd concluded by saying that financial impediments alone would keep Bitcoin free from potential trouble.
Source: fortune.com | nature.com | ai.googleblog.com | cointelegraph.com