“The risk of a quantum attack on Bitcoin is zero,” Bitcoin analyst and researcher known by the pseudonym Jack, and co-creator of the independent project Bitcoin Lens, said on investor Preston Paish’s podcast.
Jack is co-author, along with another X expert known as Nick, of Bitcoin: The Architecture of Time, a document dedicated to the physics of network consensus (proof of work, PoW) and entropy in the Bitcoin protocol.
Jack’s February 11 statement, supported by Nick, refutes the idea that: Future quantum computer Cryptographic signatures can be compromised Protect your Bitcoin private keys.
The heart of the discussion is not the latest technical information, but what Jack and Nick say is “Ontology of time”In other words, it’s a way of understanding how time works.
According to that proposition, If time were flowing continuously, Bitcoin would not work Something that can be divided into unlimited amounts. This works with defined steps. Each block added to the chain (approximately every 10 minutes) is a closed unit that cannot be further divided.
To explain, Jack compared blockchain to a series of frames. The movement we perceive is a series of still images. In Bitcoin, each block fixes an irreversible state. “Is it Bitcoin or quantum? “It can’t be both.”He argued that quantum computing relies on a model that assumes continuous time.
Understanding time in quantum and Bitcoin, according to Jack
According to Jack, general relativity and quantum mechanics both describe time as a continuous thing, something that can be infinitely divided. On the other hand, if time were made up of the smallest indivisible units, then “those theories would have to be rebuilt from scratch.”
Under that premise, Jack believes that a quantum computer that operates in superimposed states (processes information in multiple states at the same time) Could not operate with a structured system In separate steps like Bitcoin.
To explain his understanding of quantum superposition, Jack compared it to Bitcoin’s memory pool, the space where transactions are held until they are confirmed. It’s there as a possibility, but it’s not yet part of the network’s official history. “Memory pools are potentially preset states, but they don’t actually exist until they are measured.”said.
Only when a transaction enters a block (and when that block is confirmed) does it go from a possibility to a definitive fact.
According to his vision, this step is key to: Bitcoin operates in what he calls “discrete time”: The story is not a continuous flow that can be divided into infinite parts, but jumps forward block by block.
Each block sets a unique state and eliminates alternatives. In that framework, what physics calls “decoherence” (when multiple possibilities are reduced to a single outcome) simply becomes the moment when the network unifies a single valid chain. “Bitcoin is saying that what physicists call decoherence is actually coherence,” he said.
In summary, this thinker argues that if reality is organized in those discrete, irreversible steps (like Bitcoin blocks), then quantum computing relies on simultaneous and sequential states, could not work the way it is theorized today.
That’s why he concludes that there is no need to modify Bitcoin to withstand quantum attacks.
Reviews from the community
This statement provoked a critical reaction. Alex Pruden, CEO of Project Eleven, wrote about X: “If this represents what the Bitcoin community believes, You deserve to be zero.”does not provide technical details.
Famous investor Nick Carter quipped: “Podcast equipment has to become more expensive.”
Meanwhile, Hunter Beast has created a BIP-360 proposal that, as reported by CriptoNoticias, aims to: Strengthening Bitcoin against quantum threatsquestioned an approach that alluded to the “Planck time”, the smallest unit of time proposed by theoretical physics.
“Don’t you know what Planck time is? Is continuous time something like ‘continuous bites’?” “Was he making a coherent argument that I was simply too clumsy to understand?” he suggested by writing: Discrete-time thinking is not necessarily inconsistent with current physical models.
A developer specializing in quantum computing known as Nicolaus at X joined in the criticism, and he was even more blunt: “This is the stupidest discussion about quantum security I’ve ever heard. It must be intentional, it must be a distraction.”