Quantum computing firm dangles $22,500 Bitcoin prize — all you have to do is uncover a private key hidden inside a quantum-optimized problem

Quantum-software firm BlueQubit has launched its Quantum Advantage Challenge, offering a 0.25 BTC wallet prize to the winner. The overall goal of the competition is to prove that a ‘Quantum Advantage’ exists in solving a real-world cryptography problem. BlueQubit says it can find a hidden bitstring in a 2⁵⁶ search space, the key to its 0.25 BTC prize wallet, in “under two hours.” Conversely, it reckons that even the fastest classical supercomputer would take “years” to solve the problem. The challenge is now open at www.bluequbit.io.

“We wanted a clear, public, and verifiable way to demonstrate quantum advantage,” said Hayk Tepanyan, BlueQubit CTO, explaining the idea behind the Quantum Advantage Challenge. “There’s no better proof than a problem where a quantum computer can extract a real cryptographic key in hours and where classical algorithms may simply be outmatched.”

A blog post published ahead of the prize launch explained how the challenge works and how the result is verifiable. It started by sympathizing with industry watchers being bamboozled with various solutions already claiming to have demonstrated a ‘Quantum Advantage’ or even 'Quantum Supremacy.'

The BlueQubit problem takes the form of a random circuit design with 2⁵⁶ possible output bitstrings, which is about 72 quadrillion possibilities. Specifically, the problem is built around peaked circuits, which are quantum circuits engineered to produce an extremely concentrated probability distribution, ‘peaking’ on a single hidden bitstring. An elegant verification protocol has been devised like this:

• Alice constructs a peaked circuit, knowing which bitstring is the peak
• Bob runs the circuit on his quantum computer, measuring outputs
• Alice verifies by checking if Bob's output matches the known peak

All of the RAM

The construction of the problem means that no exponential classical computation is required to verify the answer – a calculation that would “require more RAM than all of the world’s computers combined,” to hold its full state, according to the Quantum firm. Instead, all you have to do is simply check if the answer is right, as it was set. In this case, it is the private key to solve the peaked circuit, which will also open a 0.25 BTC wallet.

“If no one is able to beat the quantum solution, this will stand as compelling evidence that quantum computers have already surpassed classical computing for specific, practical tasks,” sums up BlueQubit, throwing down the gauntlet.

Conversely, success by a classical computer-wielding challenger would net the lucky person/group a worthwhile prize. But perhaps more importantly, it would prove that BlueQubit’s claims of Quantum Advantage were misplaced in this instance.

It is interesting to see this challenge being used as a vehicle to demonstrate that today’s quantum computers can outperform classical machines on a real cryptographic task. Quantum has the potential to disrupt cryptography in a big way.

We feel this prize might be a tad small to attract the most formidable challengers, but BlueQubit says that “even a Google quantum researcher is involved” in the efforts to crack its challenge, classically.

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