One of the world’s most respected quantum computing researchers has sharply pulled forward the perceived timeline for a cryptographically relevant quantum computer – and Bitcoin is suddenly in the crosshairs of the debate.

In a new post on his Shtetl-Optimized blog, theoretical computer scientist Scott Aaronson writes that, given the “current staggering rate of hardware progress,” he now thinks “it’s a live possibility that we’ll have a fault-tolerant quantum computer running Shor’s algorithm before the next US presidential election.” He frames the post as an attempt to process “too much happening” in quantum computing, citing a string of advances across hardware and verifiable quantum advantage experiments, and concludes: “Evidence continues to pile up that we are not living in the uni

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