The euphoria that followed the bitcoin price’s climb to a new 2019 high above $11,000 couldn’t last forever, and it wasn’t long before some low-volume drama broke out over the weekend on Crypto Twitter.
Seemingly apropos of nothing, Dan Held (@danhedl), a pal of Anthony Pampliano and legend of Bitcoin Twitter, reminded everyone that Ethereum mastermind Vitalik Buterin had once tried to raise money to build a quantum computer for Bitcoin mining.
Vitalik Buterin’s Quantum Bitcoin Mining Ambitions
FYI: Before founding Ethereum, Vitalik put considerable effort in 2013 into trying to convince investors to fund him in constructing a quantum computer to mine Bitcoin. (Note that no quantum computers able to solve practical problems are verified as existing as of early 2017)
— Dan Hedl (@danheld) June 20, 2019
Buterin retorted that he was not trying to raise funds for a personal project. He also said:
“I recommend you re-evaluate your model of me; the process may even convince you ethereum is interesting and worth your time to explore and participate in!”
Held’s assertion was based on the following statement from 2016 by former Blockstream employee and Bitcoin Core developer Gregory Maxwell:
“Vitalik’s project immediately before Ethereum is that he was collecting investments from people to fund building a computer program to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time, supposedly by simulating a quantum computer. (Never mind that even real QC aren’t conjectured to be able to do that, nor does ‘simulation’ make any sense; unless BPP == BQP thats not even possible, and virtually all experts agree the complexity classes are probably not equivalent). He built up a reputation for himself writing tech explainers of other people’s ideas usually without any attribution (until someone complains), making him look like the author. Beyond ripping off other’s ideas, Vitalik has had virtually no interaction with Bitcoin developers, having never contributed to Bitcoin development.”
We’re in massive overton window territory, techno-babble, science project $billion marketing, Theranos and far worse has been normalised, even earnestly defended by the persuaded. Society must claw it’s way back from the Idiocracy outcome. Bitcoin dominance index should be > 90%
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 22, 2019
Before long, here comes Blockstream CEO Adam Back, arguably one of the foremost intellectual authorities on secure computing and cryptography, pointing out that the idea was unrealistic from inception.
Rather than accept that criticism, Buterin fell back on the scientific fact that the project wasn’t impossible.
> Proposal was obviously bogus to anyone with any comp sci knowledge
I actually still disagree! We don’t even know for sure that P != NP, and P = NP would be even more powerful than efficient quantum-on-classical simulation.
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) June 21, 2019
Back said the idea was baseless.
Srsly. Dude! Quantum is fundamentally more powerful. You can’t make a simulation of a fundamentally higher capability per step quantum computer execute faster on a Von Neumann machine! Really what that hypothesizes is a faster classical algorithm for SHA256 mining, definitionally
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 21, 2019
He also said that even if it worked, it would require a lot of realities to change, including the overall security of SHA256 becoming compromised.
Making a quantum simulator won’t find it for you if it even usefully exists, which would require SHA256 to be broken by a massive margin. The defects are found by mathematical cryptanalysis as evidenced by sha1, md5, md4 attack history.
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 21, 2019
“Not Impossible” ≠ Ready For Investment
Another user pointed out that just because an idea is not impossible, doesn’t mean you should go raising money for it.
You may have a point but lack of proof something is not impossible is typically not considered as sufficient foundation for raising funds.
Ideas that get funding have some degree of credibility.
Likely what people criticize you for.
— Ladislav Stejskal (@ladislavtweet) June 21, 2019
Astonishingly, Buterin then characterized himself as having “shilled” for the quantum computing project back in the day.
Oh I’m not at all saying that myself shilling for that specific team was anywhere remotely close to a good idea. Only challenging the assertion that one could have known that they were liars because what they were trying to do was *literally mathematically impossible*.
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) June 21, 2019
Back refused to leave it there, as the conversation entered its third day on Saturday. Back ranted that Buterin had utilized “magical thinking” and expressed concern about the state of the industry.
To most tech observers it is comp sci perpetual motion level magical thinking you’re still doubling down on. I wonder where humanity ends, Idiocracy? if such things get 100x funding vs world class engineering with rock solid due diligence, actually innovating the bleeding edge.
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 22, 2019
Referring to the last bull run, he fears that a willfully ignorant investor community may enable billions of more dollars to be wasted.
Sorry to be blunt but these types of nonsense projects and the ICO craze following that, most of which are down 99% without building anything, or high school science project plus billion dollar marketing actually a menace to human progress. Vented, back to being constructive…
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 22, 2019
obviously it’s a free world, but rather than tech discourse, they attacked science, economics and common sense with $billion dollar marketing budgets “maximalist”, etc. Now I’m toxic? Sorry, not sorry: a ridiculous boondoogle is still ridiculous and waving a red flag won’t change
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 22, 2019
In his final salvo, Back fumed that “Bitcoin dominance” should be greater than 90%. According to Coinmarketcap.com, BTC dominance in crypto markets is just under 60% at press time. BTC dominance is the amount of the overall market capitalization dedicated exclusively to Bitcoin Core.
We’re in massive overton window territory, techno-babble, science project $billion marketing, Theranos and far worse has been normalised, even earnestly defended by the persuaded. Society must claw it’s way back from the Idiocracy outcome. Bitcoin dominance index should be > 90%
— Adam Back (@adam3us) June 22, 2019
Back didn’t come out unscathed. A Bitcoin Cash supporter quipped that it was Back and the small-block Bitcoin community’s own fault that Bitcoin dominance had fallen over the years.
It should be…but you went and fucked that up.
— Frank Dashwood (@DJ_Erock23) June 22, 2019
Back chose not to respond.
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