Google slashes quantum resources needed to break RSA by 20x, Bitcoin faces earlier threat

Google has released new research showing that breaking RSA encryption—the backbone of banking and Bitcoin wallet security—now requires 20 times fewer quantum resources than previously estimated. Instead of 20 million qubits as estimated in 2019, it may now only take under 1 million noisy qubits to crack a 2048-bit RSA key in less than a week.

Although the most powerful quantum computer today—IBM’s Condor—only has 1,121 qubits, the pace of development is accelerating. This puts Bitcoin at increased risk, since it uses elliptic curve cryptography (ECC), which is also vulnerable to quantum attacks via Shor’s algorithm.

Google attributes the breakthrough to faster algorithms and smarter error correction techniques. The research team also utilized "magic state cultivation" to boost computational efficiency without needing extra quantum resources.

While powerful quantum machines remain a future prospect, projects like Solana and Ethereum are already developing quantum-resistant solutions. A hard fork to protect Bitcoin may happen before any real-world quantum hacks occur.

Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.15917