Dan Cline

engineering @tempo

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

We've just open sourced Schelk, a fast filesystem snapshot and rollback tool for database benchmarking.

We use Schelk every day for making our benchmarking loop fast, making our software even faster.

See below how it works. Genius work by @pepyakin.

[Tempo @tempo]

To deliver stablecoin payments at scale, Tempo must run on the best possible infrastructure.

Reth 2.0 is live in production on Tempo Mainnet.

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

RELEASING RETH 2.0!

Reth is now faster, smaller, and ready for the future of crypto infrastructure.

Gigagas per second has not just been achieved, it's been blown out of the water.

We've put in a ton of work in this, and we're incredibly proud to be sharing this with everyone.

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

https://t.co/RUWD5AHZwa

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

https://t.co/JjA87eVcYs

[Justin Drake @drakefjustin]

Today is a monumentous day for quantum computing and cryptography. Two breakthrough papers just landed (links in next tweet). Both papers improve Shor's algorithm, infamous for cracking RSA and elliptic curve cryptography. The two results compound, optimising separate layers of the quantum stack. The results are shocking. I expect a narrative shift and a further R&D boost toward post-quantum cryptography.

The first paper is by Google Quantum AI. They tackle the (logical) Shor algorithm, tailoring it to crack Bitcoin and Ethereum signatures. The algorithm runs on ~1K logical qubits for the 256-bit elliptic curve secp256k1. Due to the low circuit depth, a fast superconducting computer would recover private keys in minutes. I'm grateful to have joined as a late paper co-author, in large part for the chance to interact with experts and the alpha gleaned from internal discussions.

The second paper is by a stealthy startup called Oratomic, with ex-Google and prominent Caltech faculty. Their starting point is Google's improvements to the logical quantum circuit. They then apply improvements at the physical layer, with tricks specific to neutral atom quantum computers. The result estimates that 26,000 atomic qubits are sufficient to break 256-bit elliptic curve signatures. This would be roughly a 40x improvement in physical qubit count over previous state-of-the-art. On the flip side, a single Shor run would take ~10 days due to the relatively slow speed of neutral atoms.

Below are my key takeaways. As a disclaimer, I am not a quantum expert. Time is needed for the results to be properly vetted. Based on my interactions with the team, I have faith the Google Quantum AI results are conservative. The Oratomic paper is much harder for me to assess, especially because of the use of more exotic qLDPC codes. I will take it with a grain of salt until the dust settles.

→ q-day: My confidence in q-day by 2032 has shot up significantly. IMO there's at least a 10% chance that by 2032 a quantum computer recovers a secp256k1 ECDSA private key from an exposed public key. While a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer (CRQC) before 2030 still feels unlikely, now is undoubtedly the time to start preparing.
→ censorship: The Google paper uses a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof to demonstrate the algorithm's existence without leaking actual optimisations. From now on, assume state-of-the-art algorithms will be censored. There may be self-censorship for moral or commercial reasons, or because of government pressure. A blackout in academic publications would be a tell-tale sign.
→ cracking time: A superconducting quantum computer, the type Google is building, could crack keys in minutes. This is because the optimised quantum circuit is just 100M Toffoli gates, which is surprisingly shallow. (Toffoli gates are hard because they require production of so-called "magic states".) Toffoli gates would consume ~10 microseconds on a superconducting platform, totalling ~1,000 sec of Shor runtime.
→ latency optimisations: Two latency optimisations bring key cracking time to single-digit minutes. The first parallelises computation across quantum devices. The second involves feeding the pubkey to the quantum computer mid-flight, after a generic setup phase.
→ fast- and slow-clock: At first approximation there are two families of quantum computers. The fast-clock flavour, which includes superconducting and photonic architectures, runs at roughly 100 kHz. The slow-clock flavour, which includes trapped ion and neutral atom architectures, runs roughly 1,000x slower (~100 Hz, or ~1 week to crack a single key).
→ qubit count: The size-optimised variant of the algorithm runs on 1,200 logical qubits. On a superconducting computer with surface code error correction that's roughly 500K physical qubits, a 400:1 physical-to-logical ratio. The surface code is conservative, assuming only four-way nearest-neighbour grid connectivity. It was demonstrated last year by Google on a real quantum computer.
→ future gains: Low-hanging fruit is still being picked, with at least one of the Google optimisations resulting from a surprisingly simple observation. Interestingly, AI was not (yet!) tasked to find optimisations. This was also the first time authors such as Craig Gidney attacked elliptic curves (as opposed to RSA). Shor logical qubit count could plausibly go under 1K soonish.
→ error correction: The physical-to-logical ratio for superconducting computers could go under 100:1. For superconducting computers that would be mean ~100K physical qubits for a CRQC, two orders of magnitude away from state of the art. Neutral atoms quantum computers are amenable to error correcting codes other than the surface code. While much slower to run, they can bring down the physical to logical qubit ratio closer to 10:1.
→ Bitcoin PoW: Commercially-viable Bitcoin PoW via Grover's algorithm is not happening any time soon. We're talking decades, possibly centuries away. This observation should help focus the discussion on ECDSA and Schnorr. (Side note: as unofficial Bitcoin security researcher, I still believe Bitcoin PoW is cooked due to the dwindling security budget.)
→ team quality: The folks at Google Quantum AI are the real deal. Craig Gidney (@CraigGidney) is arguably the world's top quantum circuit optimisooor. Just last year he squeezed 10x out of Shor for RSA, bringing the physical qubit count down from 10M to 1M. Special thanks to the Google team for patiently answering all my newb questions with detailed, fact-based answers. I was expecting some hype, but found none.

[Dan Cline @Rjected]

you may have heard of a length extension attack, but have you heard of the "leg extension attack"? This attack involves traveling to a known gym and using the leg extension machine until failure

like and follow for more cryptography tips!

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

https://t.co/1abrb8MQ1j

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

https://t.co/VVgeSRzzr6

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

Tomorrow's @tempo hackathon is the MPP hackathon.

See you in SF and online.

DM me if you haven't been accepted yet, or apply for last minute acceptance in the website in the reply.

[Machine Payments Protocol @mpp]

Introducing the Machine Payments Protocol: an open standard for machine payments co-authored by @tempo and @stripe

MPP is designed to be extensible and payment-method agnostic, already supporting stablecoins, cards, and more.

[Stripe @stripe]

https://t.co/m1LvWf3PBz

[Dan Cline @Rjected]

how it feels to order a sandwich with mpp on tempo

[Dan Romero @dwr]

claude order me a sandwich

you can order a sandwich from @prospectbutcher right from command line with mpp

[Dan Cline @Rjected]

tempo and MPP are live!!!

[Tempo @tempo]

https://t.co/E6c2MpXLAa

[Tempo @tempo]

Tempo Mainnet is live! Starting today, anyone can build on Tempo through our public RPC endpoints.

Alongside mainnet, we’re introducing the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard for machine payments.

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

We have been tirelessly optimizing Reth by hand.
Huge kudos to the team.

We have also almost cracked AI-driven optimization, by letting agents use our profiling tools and our benchmarking clusters.

The results speak. Apply below.

[Tempo @tempo]

Today, cross-border payroll routes through various intermediaries, each taking a fee.

With stablecoins, payroll providers get lower-cost payouts, faster account funding, and new revenue streams.

A practical guide for payroll platforms:
https://t.co/x5TO9SOzlc

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

reth 1.11 ships storage v2 behind a flag

reth ethereum mainnet nodes are about to get much smaller & faster

looking for more testers of storage v2 and our new & improved snapshots

check the sick snapshot downloader cli we built

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

We will be dropping Windows support in upcoming releases of Reth.

Very few people use Windows for Reth nodes, and the cost on time is not worth it for us anymore.

We appreciate the community's understanding, and we are excited to continue making Reth 100x better!

[Georgios Konstantopoulos @gakonst]

people should be forbidden from tweeting about their agent setup unless they also share an impressive codebase that was written with that setup, receipts or go home