Will One Bitcoin Tempt Hackers to Breach Bitcoin’s Defenses?
Called the “Q-Day Prize,” this challenge invites participants from around the world to break a toy version of Bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography using Shor’s algorithm on real quantum hardware—without using classical shortcuts. Any individual or legal entity can register online, submit gate-level code, and describe the machine used. The deadline is set for April 5, 2026, after which Project Eleven will publish all submissions for transparency.
Project Eleven, which describes itself as a non-profit organization dedicated to “applied quantum computing for the benefit of humanity,” claims the exercise assesses how urgently the six million bitcoins—worth over half a trillion dollars—need protection before quantum advancements surpass today’s defensive tools. The group notes that more than ten million addresses have already revealed public keys, which could theoretically be exploited the moment a capable quantum computer becomes available.
However, the incentive logic seems strange. If a participant truly breaches Bitcoin’s elliptic curve security, trust in the network could vanish overnight—eliminating the purchasing power of the promised coin. Using current exchange rates, the prize is worth about $84,500, but a successful attack could potentially crash this value to zero—meaning winners might prove a catastrophic point only to receive a practically worthless trophy for their efforts.
Estimates suggest that several thousand logical, error-corrected qubits would be sufficient to break a 256-bit elliptic curve key, which optimists expect within the next decade. Today’s best machines only manage a few hundred noisy qubits, and even tiny demonstrations using four qubits remain a challenge. By offering a BTC prize, Project Eleven hopes to replace speculation with data and nudge hardware manufacturers toward reproducible performance metrics in cryptanalysis.
Recently, cryptocurrency advocates and blockchain developers have been discussing and evaluating post-quantum alternatives for Bitcoin. However, no public attack has yet broken even toy keys using physical qubits, so the Q-Day Prize may primarily serve as a readiness indicator for quantum capabilities. Whether it will spark a breakthrough or fade into trivia, the countdown to April 2026 has already begun for cryptographers.
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