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, won a 1 bitcoin bounty for breaking a 15-bit elliptic curve key on publicly accessible quantum hardware. This achievement, recognized by quantum security startup Project Eleven, marks the largest public demonstration of its kind, posing a potential threat to bitcoin, ether, and other major blockchains. Elliptic curve cryptography, the foundation of crypto wallet security, relies on the principle that deriving a private key from its public counterpart is practically impossible. However, quantum computers, utilizing Shor's algorithm, challenge this assumption. Although Lelli's breakthrough does not immediately compromise bitcoin's security, which uses 256-bit elliptic curve security, it underscores the accelerating progress in quantum attacks. The previous public break was a 6-bit demonstration, and Lelli's result expanded this by a factor of 512 in just seven months. As the resource requirements for such attacks continue to decrease, the barrier to executing them in practice also lowers. This development has significant implications for wallets with public keys already visible on-chain, with approximately 6.9 million bitcoin at risk. 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.