We are pleased to host a talk of our current PhD student Lee Armstrong for the discussion group talk on 4 March 2026:
Lee Armstrong: “On the feasibility of Quantum Cryptocurrency Mining Talk”
University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK
Supervisors: Carlos Perez Delgado, Jorge Quintanilla
One of the most active and important areas of research within the quantum information community is the search for feasible, practical, applications of quantum computation. One area of particular interest has been the search for problems that can be potentially solved — with a sizeable quantum advantage — on NISQ (Noisy Intermediate Stage Quantum) devices.
Recent work [1-3] has shown that blockchain Proof of Work (PoW) protocols are a good candidate for implementation using NISQ devices. PoW works in the following way. In a system like Bitcoin [4], a “miner” solves a computationally hard problem in order to propose a new block of transactions to the blockchain and is rewarded for this computational work if successful. Other users of the blockchain must be able to efficiently verify the solution to the problem. Given that classical miners have a very low success rate, a quantum miner – essentially a NISQ device running a quantum search (Grover) algorithm – could have a very high error rate and still display an advantage over classical devices.
In this talk we explore the design and implementation of a Mini-Bitcoin mining circuit and the results from running it on current day NISQ hardware — where Mini-Bitcoin is a representative toy model of Bitcoin. Then we give a trajectory for what the hardware requirements will need to be to run a full Bitcoin mining circuit on future hardware.
References
[1] Joseph Kearney and Carlos A. Perez-Delgado. Quantum Blockchain Miners Provide Massive Energy Savings. en. arXiv:2306.03321 [quant-ph]. June 2023. url: http : / / arxiv . org / abs / 2306.03321 (visited on 11/18/2024).
[2] Joseph J. Kearney, Dan A. Bard, and Carlos A. Perez-Delgado. “Quantum advantage on proof of work”. en. In: Array 15 (Sept. 2022), p. 100225. issn: 25900056. doi: 10.1016/j.array.2022.100225. url: https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii /S2590005622000650 (visited on 11/18/2024).
[3] Joseph J. Kearney and Carlos A. Perez-Delgado. “Vulnerability of blockchain technologies to quantum attacks”. In: Array 10 (July 2021), p. 100065. issn: 2590-0056. doi: 10 . 1016 / j . array . 2021 . 100065. url: https : / / www . sciencedirect . com / science / article / pii / S2590005621000138 (visited on 12/05/2025).
[4] Satoshi Nakamoto. “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. In: (Oct. 2008). url: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.