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 a researcher broke a 15-bit elliptic curve key, a crucial component of the cryptocurrency's security. This achievement, made possible by independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli, has earned him a 1 bitcoin bounty, valued at approximately $78,000. The breakthrough was announced by quantum security startup Project Eleven, which awarded the Q-Day Prize to Lelli for his work on publicly accessible quantum hardware. By deriving a private encryption key from its public counterpart, Lelli demonstrated the largest public demonstration of a quantum attack that could potentially threaten bitcoin, ether, and other major blockchains. Elliptic curve cryptography, the math behind crypto wallets, relies on the difficulty of obtaining a private key from a public key. However, quantum computers running Shor's algorithm can challenge this assumption, posing a risk to the security of these wallets. Although Lelli's result is significant, it does not mean bitcoin is close to being compromised, as it uses 256-bit elliptic curve security, far more complex than the 15-bit key broken by Lelli. The prize was designed to assess the progress of quantum attacks on real-world cryptography-based products. The previous public break was a 6-bit demonstration by Steve Tippeconnic in September 2025, and Lelli's achievement 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 estimating the cost to be 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 at risk. To address this concern, bitcoin developers have proposed migration paths, including the addition of quantum-safe address types, while other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Tron, StarkWare, and Ripple have also published post-quantum transition plans.