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

A significant breakthrough has been made in the realm of quantum attacks, bringing the theoretical threat to Bitcoin one step closer to reality. Quantum security startup Project Eleven awarded a 1 bitcoin bounty, valued at approximately $78,000, to independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli for breaking a 15-bit elliptic curve key on publicly accessible quantum hardware. This achievement marks the largest public demonstration of its kind, posing a potential threat to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major blockchains. Elliptic curve cryptography, which enables crypto wallets to prove fund ownership without revealing private keys, is the foundation of this technology. However, quantum computers utilizing Shor's algorithm can challenge this assumption, potentially compromising the security of these signatures. Although Lelli's result does not imply that Bitcoin is on the verge of being compromised, as it uses 256-bit elliptic curve security, it does demonstrate the rapid progress being made in quantum attacks. The previous public break was a 6-bit demonstration, and Lelli's 15-bit result represents a 512-fold increase in just seven months. Theoretical estimates suggest that the resource requirements for a full 256-bit attack are decreasing, with some predictions putting the cost below 500,000 physical qubits. This has significant implications for wallets with public keys already visible on-chain, with approximately 6.9 million Bitcoin, or one-third of the total supply, potentially vulnerable to quantum attacks. In response, Bitcoin developers have proposed migration paths, including the introduction of quantum-safe address types, while other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum and Ripple, have also published post-quantum transition plans.