3/20/2023: The Great Quantum Heist

How Bitcoin could plunge to zero

People have been flocking to BTC to avoid hyperinflation, which I found absurd. The United States of America is not a third world country. Yes, we have some long term problems but hyperinflation won’t come in three months. These people don’t believe in the centralized banking systems but they put so much trust into BTC’s cryptography. In my opinion, it’s a bad idea for people to put a large percentage of their net worth into something they have no control of and pray that its cryptography will never be broken or can be easily upgraded. I asked ChatGPT to write a story about how BTC could plunge to zero due to weak cryptography. The story below makes a lot of sense.

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In the year 2031, the world was abuzz with the advancements in quantum computing. These powerful machines, capable of solving complex problems at unprecedented speeds, had disrupted every industry. Scientists, mathematicians, and cryptographers all marvelled at the incredible potential of this cutting-edge technology. But they were also well aware of the Pandora's box that had been opened.

One of the most significant applications of this technology was in cryptography, which formed the backbone of the world's financial systems. No system was as reliant on cryptography as Bitcoin, the original and still the most valuable cryptocurrency. With a price of one million dollars per coin, Bitcoin had made many people unimaginably wealthy, and the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency had swelled to multiple trillions of dollars.

Whales, as the biggest Bitcoin investors were known, held vast fortunes in their digital wallets. They believed their assets to be secure, protected by the robust cryptographic algorithms that had been unbreakable for more than a decade. Little did they know that the security they had taken for granted was about to be shattered.

In a small, nondescript laboratory, an ambitious team of cryptographers and quantum computing experts had been working tirelessly on a secret project. They were attempting to crack Bitcoin's cryptographic algorithms using quantum computers, driven by the prospect of unimaginable wealth and a place in history.

After months of feverish work, the team made a breakthrough. They discovered a method to derive private keys from their corresponding public keys, effectively breaking the cryptographic signature scheme that protected the wallets of the Bitcoin whales. As soon as they realized the magnitude of their discovery, the team quickly put their plan into action.

Almost overnight, the unthinkable happened. The private keys of many of the biggest Bitcoin whales were exposed, and their wallets were systematically plundered. Billions of dollars' worth of Bitcoin was transferred to random wallets, vanishing into the depths of the blockchain.

As the news of the breach spread like wildfire, panic gripped the Bitcoin market. The price plummeted from its lofty heights of one million dollars to zero, effectively erasing trillions of dollars in value. The once-unstoppable juggernaut of the cryptocurrency world had come to a grinding halt.

The fallout was swift and brutal. Governments around the world scrambled to regulate and control the technology that had brought the world's premier cryptocurrency to its knees. Investigations were launched, and the race was on to find the perpetrators of the Great Quantum Heist.

The team behind the heist had anticipated the backlash and had taken measures to cover their tracks. They knew that they had changed the course of history, and they watched from the shadows as the world reacted to their handiwork. As the dust settled, they knew that they had become legends in the annals of cybercrime.

The collapse of Bitcoin sent shockwaves through the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. Trust in digital assets was shattered, and countless fortunes were vaporized overnight. As the world attempted to pick up the pieces, one thing became abundantly clear: the age of quantum computing had irrevocably changed the landscape of cryptography, finance, and cybersecurity.

In the aftermath of the Great Quantum Heist, new cryptographic algorithms emerged, designed to be resistant to the threats posed by quantum computing. As the world adapted to this new reality, it became evident that the power of quantum computing was a double-edged sword, capable of both incredible progress and unimaginable destruction.