Research: Approximately 29,600 physical quantum bits can crack Bitcoin keys in about 1 hour

According to Bitcoin.com, research by the quantum computing company Alice & Bob estimates that a fault-tolerant quantum computer with approximately 29,588 physical qubits could solve the 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography problem used by Bitcoin in about 61.8 minutes. This problem underpins the digital signatures used for Bitcoin transaction authorization, and the research results are theoretical resource estimates, not indicative of the current capabilities of existing quantum computers to break encryption.

The research also estimates that 22,593 physical qubits could break RSA-2048 encryption in about 3.14 days. The relevant calculations utilize cat qubits technology aimed at reducing quantum errors, combined with more efficient error-correcting codes and improvements to Shor's algorithm.

If a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive private keys from publicly available public keys, the associated Bitcoins could face risks of unauthorized signatures and asset theft. The estimated breaking time is still longer than Bitcoin's average block interval of about 10 minutes; approximately 6.9 million Bitcoins may be at risk due to the corresponding public keys being publicly available.