COINDESK · 2026-10-29 13:55 UTC

New quantum model slashes hardware needed to break bitcoin keys by 17 times

Alice & Bob researchers estimate a quantum computer with 29,588 physical qubits could break Bitcoin's cryptography in about 62 minutes, roughly 17 times fewer qubits than Google's earlier estimate of 500,000. Over 6 million bitcoins sit at addresses with exposed public keys vulnerable to quantum attacks, though the attack would be too slow to steal funds from pending transactions before confirmation. Alice & Bob expects quantum hardware improvements and declining resource requirements to converge in the early 2030s, leaving Bitcoin developers years to implement cryptographic upgrades across…

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