[Cryptography] BitCoin as Quantum Cryptanalysis canary.

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

Like many others, I believe it most likely that Hal Finney was Satoshi and
following a misguided hairshirt morality mined the genesis locks into the
bit bucket. This hypothesis saves all the appearances and is far simpler
than any competing explanation.

If we accept this hypothesis as fact, there is only one circumstance in
which the genesis block coins are likely to be spent - if the public keys
are broken.

Contrawise, in the case that a quantum computer capable of factoring the
keys was ever built, what is the chance that it would end up being used to
factor the keys that would unlock a few billion dollars worth of moolah?

We may therefore regard the genesis blocks as canaries for quantum
cryptanalysis or some equally powerful advance in cryptanalysis of public
key cryptography. If the coins from those blocks are ever spent, time to
get worried.

Unless of course, the whole BTC system collapses under the weight of its
own ridiculousness first...
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