Quantum Blockchain Shares Fall After Reporting Limited R&D Breakthrough

By Joe Hoppe

Quantum Blockchain Technologies PLC shares fell Tuesday after the company said it is making progress on a machine learning method to improve over commercially available bitcoin miners, though the effort to deliver results is proving demanding.
Shares at 0852 GMT were down 0.2 pence, or 15%, at 1.1 pence.

The cryptocurrency technology company said the requirements to validate its machine learnings methods are very challenging, and it hasn’t ruled out the use of a supercomputer, though it will need a more pragmatic approach in the short-term. Preliminary results of one of the methods indicate a 30% improvement over commercially available miners.
Quantum said it will take some years before sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available to allow the company to take full advantage of its approach.
The company said it is considering licensing its method control software to an existing bitcoin miner as a more immediate and less capital-intensive approach to generating revenue.
The company also said it has found regularities within algorithm SHA-256, marking progress toward a potential patent filing.
Write to Joe Hoppe at joseph.hoppe@wsj.com