Quantum Breakthrough Puts Bitcoin Security at Risk: Study
A study by Google Quantum AI researcher Craig Gidney revealed that the quantum resources needed to break RSA encryption may be 20 times lower than previously estimated. RSA is a public-key cryptosystem that enables secure data transmission.While the Bitcoin network itself does not use RSA, it relies on elliptic curve cryptography, which is also vulnerable to quantum attacks through Shor’s algorithm, according to the researcher.
Gidney’s new estimate suggests that a 2048-bit RSA key could be cracked in under a week using fewer than one million noisy qubits—far fewer than the 20 million previously thought necessary.
This research significantly shortens the timeline for when quantum computing could pose a threat to encryption systems used in crypto wallets and infrastructure. Although no quantum computer today has enough qubits to execute such an attack, the rapid pace of research is raising alarms.
