Maybe QC can work at scale, rendering current cryptography useless. Maybe it cannot. But, lets assume QC can work. Let us also assume some country currently has a QC. What do you do with it? Because, if anyone knows you have it, the world economy tanks. This is not like a nuclear weapon. Knowledge of its existence cannot be used for deterrance. No one is going to trust that it is not being used. So trust in our communication systems completely fails with knowledge of its existence. Commerce and cooperation fail. Social structures disintegrate. Order turns to disorder, which reduces the value of the QC itself. Instead, you want to very, very quietly use it to simply stop anyone else from achieving QC, all while encouraging quick adoption of quantum resistant cryptography. You want to convince everyone that QC cannot exist for a long period of time, but still hold out its threat in the future. And if someone does figure it out alongside you, you join forces and work together to hide its existence. But you want quantum resistance in place before you announce your QC achievement, such that you can monetize the value of the QC computing without destroying the economy which is needed to do so. In the interim, you quietly accumulate secrets. Whether bitcoin survives this transition, as a communication system with a monetary use case, is unknown. Quantum resistance maybe bloats the blockchain and is a bridge too far, etc. IDK. Not everything will survive. So interesting to see China lean into gold, while the US leans increasingly into bitcoin. View quoted note →