Researchers Cut Quantum Resources Needed to Attack Bitcoin and Ethereum by Over 50% Researchers from the Ethereum Foundation, Theta Labs, a…
Researchers Cut Quantum Resources Needed to Attack Bitcoin and Ethereum by Over 50%
Researchers from the Ethereum Foundation, Theta Labs, and StarkWare published a paper showing they used AI coding agents to optimize key calculations in Shor’s algorithm, slashing the estimated quantum computing resources required to target Bitcoin and Ethereum's secp256k1 cryptography by over 50% compared to Google's March benchmark.
The optimized circuit reduces the requirement to 1,151 logical qubits, demonstrating that algorithmic advances are pulling forward the quantum threat timeline even without hardware leaps. While no current quantum machine can break either network today, researchers warned that post-quantum upgrades take years to implement and require proactive action.