Project 11 is offering 1 BTC to whoever cracks the longest Bitcoin key
Quantum researchers are offering 1 Bitcoin to whoever cracks the biggest "toy version" of a Bitcoin key using Shor's algorithm on a quantum computer.
Quantum computing research firm Project Eleven has launched a competition to see just how much of a threat quantum computing currently poses to Bitcoin.
Launching the competition on April 16, Project Eleven said it is offering 1 Bitcoin $BTC $84,342 to whoever cracks the biggest chunk of a Bitcoin key using a quantum computer within the next year.
Project Eleven said the purpose of the “Q-Day Prize” is to test “how urgent the threat” of quantum is to Bitcoin and to find quantum-proof solutions to secure Bitcoin over the long term.
“10 million+ addresses have exposed public keys. Quantum computing is steadily progressing. Nobody has rigorously benchmarked this threat yet,” Project Eleven wrote on X on April 16.
More than 6 million Bitcoin — worth around $500 billion — could be at risk if quantum computers become powerful enough to crack elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) keys, Project Eleven said.
Participants can register as individuals or as a team and have until April 5, 2026, to complete the task. The prize winner will win 1 Bitcoin, currently worth $84,100.
The aim is to run Shor's algorithm on a quantum computer to crack as many bits of a Bitcoin key as possible, acting as a proof-of-concept that the technique could scale to crack a full, 256-bit Bitcoin key once the necessary compute is available.
“The mission: break the largest ECC key possible using Shor's algorithm on a quantum computer. No classical shortcuts. No hybrid tricks. Pure quantum power,” Project Eleven said.
“You don't need to break a Bitcoin key. A 3-bit key would be big news,” it added.
No ECC key used in real-world applications has ever been cracked, noted Project Eleven, adding that the winner could “go down in cryptography history.”
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