IBM announced that the Quantum Nighthawk Quantum Processor is ready for 2025, presenting an ambitious roadmap for the next steps it offers in quantum computing. A day later, Elon Musk responded from his X account.
He did it with questions aimed at Grok, an artificial intelligence that operated within that social network and drove himself.
Questions have weight. SHA-256 is a guardian algorithm I’ll protect it Bitcoin Mining Since its founding. He is responsible for converting network data into encrypted codes that cannot be decrypted (at least on classic computers for now).
However, some theorists argue that Quantum Computer can reduce this difficulty by using the So-Calcalized Grover algorithm… not so easy.
“At this point, I’m still confident about Bitcoin,” Grok said.
Grok’s response was direct:
«Evaluation of NIST, IBM and Expert Surveys in 2025, according to the probability of quantum computing Break-256 (using Glover algorithm) Nearly 0% over the next five years, and less than 10% by 2035. Error correction requires millions of qubits. Today, it has reached around 1,000 people and is not stable. Bitcoin Hash is still certain ».
Then, before the new musk comment, where he left the questionable expression “hmm”, Grok enlarged his answer:
«Do you want curiosity? According to the latest report, to defeat SHA-256, it takes about 1 billion (10^12) of physical qubits to apply error correction. Today, the maximum is a thousand cards, and it is not even reliable. Experts say this is less than 1% chance of happening before 2030. Bitcoin is safe for now ».
In other words, it doesn’t mean you can never break, But that won’t be spent tomorrow. To do this, it takes a technical leap, but that seems to be far away.
A real interest in paranoia or bitcoin security?
Musk’s question never stops drawing attention. Furthermore, taking into account the preferences declared by Dogecoin, by the way, it is a cryptocurrency that uses the Scrypt algorithm rather than the SHA-256.
But in this case, the focus is on Bitcoin, the ecosystem’s most robust protocol. And that’s logical: if SHA-256 is broken, Bitcoin is not only troubled, Many other technologies This depends on this type of encryption security.
Now, does it make sense to worry about this? The answer is yes…but not so much. Grok is AI and can be affected by data circulating in X or with outdated information, but its calculations are in good agreement with the reporting of encryption.
For example, Adam Back, Blockstream CEO, Bernstein Research Analysts, and some technical research has included both the SHA-256 algorithm and the ECDSA signature (ECDSA signature (digital signature algorithm for elliptic curves). Quantum threats are at least 1-20 years away.
Additionally, IBM and IONQ companies announced Quantum Advances on June 11th, but the debate resurfaced the dangers of quantum computing. There are more vigilante analysts than other analysts, but most people agree. The risk is far.