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

The long-feared quantum attack on bitcoin's underlying tech has become slightly more tangible. 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 feat, which is the largest public demonstration of its kind, has significant implications for the security of major blockchains, including bitcoin and ether. Elliptic curve cryptography, the mathematical foundation of crypto wallets, relies on the idea that deriving a private key from its public counterpart is virtually impossible. However, quantum computers running Shor's algorithm pose a challenge to this assumption. Lelli's achievement does not mean that bitcoin is on the verge of being compromised, as it uses 256-bit elliptic curve security. Nevertheless, the fact that a 15-bit key was broken on public hardware marks a significant milestone. The previous public break was a 6-bit demonstration using IBM's 133-qubit quantum computer, and Lelli's 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 rapidly, with a recent Google Research paper 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 at risk. To mitigate this threat, developers have proposed migration paths, including the introduction of quantum-safe address types.