It Might Be 20 Times Easier for Quantum Computers to Break Bitcoin, Google Says

3 spenvo 5 5/26/2025, 9:38:54 PM decrypt.co ↗

Comments (5)

greyface- · 3h ago
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.15917

The focus on Bitcoin appears to be synthesis on Decrypt's part - it's not mentioned once in the paper.

GianFabien · 7h ago
A forward looking thesis based on "research paper". Deeper in the article it mentions:

    > testing keys ranging from 1 to 25 bits—tiny compared to Bitcoin's 256-bit encryption
Any panic about breaking Bitcoin is a bit premature. In ten year's time ... anything could happen in that timeframe.
ggm · 9h ago
20x easier to a target which is 1000x more complex than the systems we have today, and at this stage it's a system which is coherent (as in able to provide answers) for brief intervals, and would require a week per keypair.

I am still skeptical of deep mind. I think I'd like to see non-google critique of their systems behaviour, the algorithmic implications, and the outcomes and projections.

johng · 8h ago
I guess it would only need to break 1 keypair to break Bitcoin though... Satoshi's stash. If it breaks that, it has access to all that Bitcoin and it would crash the coin....

1. People would know that keypairs can be cracked. 2. They could flood the market with a bunch of coin to break the market.

I think that would be enough to crash Bitcoin, at least a large percentage.

ggm · 7h ago
The bigger picture of PQC is an understood story. Crashing bitcoin, I'm looking for a downside..