Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have unveiled their latest supercomputer, El Capitan, which is deemed the world's fastest computer. The machine is capable of conducting 2.79 quadrillion calculations per second, making it the first high-performance computing (HPC) machine to surpass the 2 exaFLOP barrier. El Capitan's power has raised concerns about its potential impact on the blockchain industry, as security relies heavily on strong cryptography. However, blockchain encryption experts argue that the fears are unfounded, as it would take a supercomputer like El Capitan 10 billion years to break a 256-bit private key. The larger threat to cryptographic systems comes from quantum computing, which has the potential to defeat the computational asymmetry that makes current cryptography models secure. Thus, while supercomputers currently do not pose a threat to blockchains, experts caution against placing too much faith in the technology's ability to secure itself.



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