Researcher Claims 1 Bitcoin Bounty for Achieving Largest Quantum Attack on Underlying Technology

The threat of quantum attacks on bitcoin has become more tangible after an independent researcher, Giancarlo Lelli, broke a 15-bit elliptic curve key on publicly accessible quantum hardware. This achievement earned him a 1 bitcoin bounty, worth approximately $78,000, from quantum security startup Project Eleven. The breakthrough is significant as it demonstrates the largest public demonstration of a quantum attack on elliptic curve cryptography to date, a crucial component of bitcoin's security. Elliptic curve cryptography allows a crypto wallet to prove ownership of funds without revealing its private key. However, quantum computers running Shor's algorithm can potentially derive the private key from its public counterpart, posing a threat to the security of bitcoin and other major blockchains. Lelli's achievement does not mean that bitcoin is on the verge of being compromised, as it uses 256-bit elliptic curve security, which is much more secure than the 15-bit key that was broken. The previous public break was a 6-bit demonstration, and Lelli's result expanded that by a factor of 512 in just seven months. The rapid progress in quantum attacks has sparked concern among bitcoin developers, with many proposing migration paths to quantum-safe address types. Approximately 6.9 million bitcoin, or one-third of the total supply, are stored in wallets whose public keys are already visible on-chain, making them vulnerable to quantum attacks. As the resource requirements for quantum attacks continue to drop, the need for post-quantum transition plans becomes increasingly urgent.