Quantum risk: it would take much less hardware than expected to crack Bitcoin's cryptographic keys
Researchers at the quantum computing company Alice & Bob say: it would ultimately take far fewer physical qubits than expected by Google to break the cryptography that protects Bitcoin wallets. A risk that particularly…
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https://cryptoast.fr/risk-quantique-faudrait-beaucoup-minis-materiel-prevu-casser-cles-cryptgraphiques-bitcoin/
Last May, researchers from the Google Quantum AI structure - in partnership with Stanford and the Ethereum Foundation - triggered a real shock wave within the cryptocurrency ecosystem by affirming that it would take 20 times less hardware than initially planned to break the cryptography on which Bitcoin and Ethereum are based.
A scenario of increased quantum risk which immediately triggered a notable wave of interest in the “post-quantum” crypto market. However, it seems that these already pessimistic estimates have been further overestimated, according to the recent study published by researchers from the quantum computing company Alice & Bob.
Indeed, Google Quantum AI researchers estimated in their last report that a quantum computer would need less than 500,000 physical qubits - the size of the hardware involved - to run Shor's algorithm, which makes it possible to find a private key from a public key, compared to several million according to previous estimates.
A figure which has once again been lowered to now fall below the threshold of 30,000 qubits (29,588 to be exact), according to the statement from the company Alice & Bob. Enough to drastically reduce Google's estimates regarding the necessary hardware, but with an execution time now estimated at 61.8 minutes, compared to 9 minutes for Google.
The elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem underlies elliptic curve cryptography, including ECDSA, which secures blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and ECDH, used to establish encrypted connections on the web. For Bitcoin, approximately one hour exceeds the network's 10-minute block time: ongoing transactions remain out of range.
Please note: this estimate is based on “cat” qubits, which remove a category of errors at the hardware level and therefore require fewer physical qubits than the classic architectures used by Google.
Alice & Bob's study also takes into account a second cryptography system, RSA-2048, older than elliptic curves and very widespread. A model that the quantum computer could break with Shor's algorithm in just over 3 days, with 22,593 physical qubits. Enough to shatter the previous estimate by researcher Craig Gidney of Google Quantum AI published in 2025, with 40 times less hardware needed.
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