Quantum Bitcoin Mining

Entropy

卷:24

Marius Nagy¹  Naya Nagy²  Shahadat Hossain³  Robert Benkoczi³  Daya Gaur³ 

[1] College of Computer Engineering and Science, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar 31952, Saudi Arabia;

[2] College of Computer Science and IT, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 34212, Saudi Arabia;

[3] Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, Canada;

关键词: Bitcoin;    quantum algorithms;    quantum security;    blockchain;    hash functions;   

DOI  :  10.3390/e24030323

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

This paper studies the effect of quantum computers on Bitcoin mining. The shift in computational paradigm towards quantum computation allows the entire search space of the golden nonce to be queried at once by exploiting quantum superpositions and entanglement. Using Grover’s algorithm, a solution can be extracted in time $O\left(\sqrt{2^{256}/t}\right)$, where t is the target value for the nonce. This is better using a square root over the classical search algorithm that requires $O(2^{256}/t)$ tries. If sufficiently large quantum computers are available for the public, mining activity in the classical sense becomes obsolete, as quantum computers always win. Without considering quantum noise, the size of the quantum computer needs to be $\approx$${10}^4$ qubits.

【 授权许可】

Unknown