Quantum Computers May Break Crypto Wallet Encryption with Just 10,000 Qubits

Quantum computing has long been seen as a potential threat to the security of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. A new study by researchers from Caltech and Oratomic suggests that this threat may be closer than previously thought.

The study, which was published on the arXiv preprint server, found that a quantum computer with around 10,000 qubits could potentially break the encryption protecting these wallets in as little as 10 days. This is significantly lower than previous estimates, which had suggested that hundreds of thousands of qubits would be required.

The researchers used Google's quantum circuits to simulate the breaking of 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography, which is currently used to secure Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets. They found that a system with around 26,000 qubits could break this encryption in about 10 days, allowing a malicious actor to derive private keys and take control of funds.

The study also looked at the security of RSA-2048, which is used by financial institutions to secure their web2 platforms. The researchers found that a system with around 102,000 qubits would be required to break this encryption, although this could potentially be done in about three months using a highly parallelized setup.