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RE: There will never be 21 million Bitcoins
As the song says, "Never, say never!" Right now it's nearly impossible to break into a bitcoin wallet...but, perhaps with advances in computing in the coming years, it might be easier and easier. Or they could always just fork them out, like they proposed with Steemit.
As the length of the private key is well defined, it only requires powerful enough cluster of computers to try out every possible private key and scan the block chain using that private key. As a lot of computers are already using SSD disks, I/O speed is not limited to breakage of spinning disks due to excess temperature.
The quantum computer... though for doing what you are talking about, the technology is not as close as some like to speculate.
I was thinking more about how trojans and distributed computing work... Basically give every computer a slice of keyspace to scan for and then send back all the keys that result in non-zero balance. You don't actually need to scan all blocks for any key that is actually in use, because first block that has transaction signed with that private key is enough to prove that the key is valid.
The quantum PC's do not scares me at all. They will not appear over night. By the time they grow enough to make a thread to cryptos, most crypto algo's will be mutated to a much much much stronger methods.
Shield and sword. Eternal, never ending struggle
Powerful computers and cryptography live symbiotic life... Without one there is no other... It's not a fight at all.