Could whales like @jack and
@jack mallers Saylor Coinbase and ... please sponsor a "Quantum Canary".
Some claim that Bitcoin's price is currently suppressed due to FUD around Quantum readiness and as things stand, Bitcoin indeed is the biggest carrot dangling in front of the noses of quantum computing investors.
Some are convinced we are still decades away from crypto relevant quantum computing and others are scared and there is no expert in the world that can proof the absence of a quantum threat but we could have a Canary and I believe such a Canary would be the most sensible approach to this problem as all alternatives will have us fighting internally over the right moment to panic and we will get it wrong inevitably.
I am not a cryptographer, but to my understanding we are currently at the stage where QC cannot factor "12", yet it needs to reach the ability to run Shor's algorithm for the 256 bit elliptic curves that protect Bitcoin.
We need to create a challenge that sits in the huge gap between those two realities. Constructing a challenge based on a 128 bit curve might be too risky as it could potentially be brute forced by massive non quantum supercomputers, leading to a false alarm.
The solution is to sponsor a high value bounty locked behind a custom curve that is mathematically impossible for classical computers to crack, perhaps around 180 bits, but which is significantly easier for a quantum computer than Bitcoin itself. If that bounty gets swept, we get undeniable proof of high level QC capabilities but we would still have a computational gap equivalent to roughly four years of Moore's Law to react. That gives us the time we need to comfortably reach consensus and deploy a fork before the main network is actually at risk.
Today people argue that Bitcoin is down 30% because of quantum risk? Imagine having 0.05% of all Bitcoins sitting in such a Canary. A small price to pay for the biggest stake holders yet 10k BTC would be enough of an incentive for anybody eyeing the real Bitcoins' addresses to not hold their breath for four long years of uncertainty regarding being in the lead in the quantum race.
