谷歌的新量子芯片可以破解比特币加密，但威胁可能被夸大了

本月早些时候，谷歌发布了一款名为 Willow 的全新量子芯片。该公司表示，这款 105 量子位芯片——是这家科技巨头之前的 Sycamore 芯片量子位数量的两倍——在五分钟内完成了一次计算，这将需要现代超级计算机“令人难以置信”的 10 亿年时间。

Earlier this month, Google announced a brand-new quantum chip.

本月早些时候，谷歌发布了一款全新的量子芯片。

The 105-qubit chip — that's double the qubit count of the tech giant's preceding Sycamore chip — completed a computation in under five minutes that would take a modern supercomputer a "mind-boggling" 10 septillion years, the company said.

该公司表示，这款 105 量子位芯片——是这家科技巨头之前的 Sycamore 芯片量子位数量的两倍——在五分钟内完成了一次计算，这将需要现代超级计算机“令人难以置信”的 10 亿年时间。

The news also reignited a conversation surrounding the security of blockchains, the distributed ledgers that run digital currencies like Bitcoin. Could a future quantum computer break the cryptocurrency's encryption, allowing thieves to abscond with unfathomable sums?

该消息还重新引发了围绕区块链安全性的讨论，区块链是运行比特币等数字货币的分布式账本。未来的量子计算机能否破解加密货币的加密，让窃贼携巨款潜逃？

As Fortune reports, researchers at the University of Kent found in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study that the risk is very real. In fact, just the downtime required to update the blockchain to protect itself from an encryption-breaking quantum computer could extend to 76 days — and the resulting losses would likely be staggering.

据《财富》杂志报道，肯特大学的研究人员在一项尚未经过同行评审的研究中发现，这种风险是非常真实的。事实上，仅更新区块链以保护自身免受加密量子计算机的攻击所需的停机时间就可能延长至 76 天，而由此造成的损失可能是惊人的。

"Bringing your technology down... can be very, very costly, even if it’s on for a few minutes or a few hours," coauthor and senior lecturer at the University of Kent Carlos Perez-Delgado told Fortune.

肯特大学高级讲师卡洛斯·佩雷斯-德尔加多 (Carlos Perez-Delgado) 向《财富》杂志表示：“即使只持续几分钟或几个小时，让你的技术瘫痪……成本也可能非常非常高。”

"If I had a large quantum computer right now, I could essentially take over all the Bitcoin," he added. "By tomorrow, I could be reading everybody’s email and getting into everybody's computer accounts, and that’s just the fact."

“如果我现在有一台大型量子计算机，我基本上可以接管所有的比特币，”他补充道。 “到明天，我可能会阅读每个人的电子邮件并进入每个人的计算机帐户，这就是事实。”

But exactly how imminent this threat is remains highly debatable. In an update last week, AllianceBernstein analysts argued that Bitcoin contributors should "start preparing for the quantum future."

但这种威胁到底有多迫在眉睫仍然存在很大争议。在上周的更新中，AllianceBernstein 分析师认为，比特币贡献者应该“开始为量子未来做准备”。

However, "any practical threat to Bitcoin seems decades away," the analysts wrote.

然而，“对比特币的任何实际威胁似乎还需要几十年的时间，”分析师写道。

Researchers have similarly argued that it would take quantum computers with millions of qubits to break Bitcoin encryption in a single day.

研究人员也同样认为，需要拥有数百万量子比特的量子计算机才能在一天内破解比特币加密。

Analysts have also found that SHA-256 encryption, which serves as the security measure protecting Bitcoin miners today, could eventually be cracked — albeit with quantum hardware that hasn't even been dreamed up yet.

分析师还发现，作为当今保护比特币矿工的安全措施的 SHA-256 加密最终可能会被破解——尽管目前还没有想到量子硬件。

On a broader scale, apart from cracking cryptocurrencies, Google's latest quantum chip also falls woefully short of doing anything actually useful as of right now.

从更广泛的范围来看，除了破解加密货币之外，谷歌最新的量子芯片目前还远远无法做任何实际有用的事情。

"The particular calculation in question is to produce a random distribution," German physicist and science communicator Sabine Hossenfelder tweeted in response to Google's recent announcement. "The result of this calculation has no practical use."

德国物理学家兼科学传播者萨宾·霍森菲尔德 (Sabine Hossenfelder) 在推特上回应谷歌最近的声明时表示：“所讨论的具体计算是产生随机分布。” “这个计算结果没有实际用途。”

In short, while many agree that quantum computers could pose a growing threat to the cryptography behind Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency community could still have plenty of time to implement changes to protect the blockchain.

简而言之，虽然许多人认为量子计算机可能对比特币背后的密码学构成越来越大的威胁，但加密货币社区仍然有足够的时间来实施变革以保护区块链。

Which is easier said than done. As Fortune points out, Bitcoin's decentralized nature could make pushing an encryption update an immense task.

说起来容易做起来难。正如《财富》杂志指出的那样，比特币的去中心化性质可能会使推动加密更新成为一项艰巨的任务。

But that doesn't mean the cryptocurrency shouldn't do it. In an October blog post, Vitalik Buterin, the cofounder of the prominent cryptocurrency Ethereum, argued that advancing quantum computing tech could have "consequences across the entire Ethereum roadmap."

但这并不意味着加密货币不应该这样做。在 10 月份的一篇博客文章中，著名加密货币以太坊的联合创始人 Vitalik Buterin 认为，先进的量子计算技术可能会“对整个以太坊路线图产生影响”。

"The indisputable fact that nobody can argue is that when we do get there," Perez-Delgado told Fortune, "our current securities, the cybersecurity systems — which includes everything from Bitcoin to email — will be in great danger."

佩雷斯-德尔加多对《财富》杂志表示：“无可争辩的事实是，当我们真正实现这一目标时，我们现有的证券、网络安全系统——包括从比特币到电子邮件的一切——将面临巨大危险。”

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