Researchers Cut Estimated Quantum Attack Workload for Bitcoin and Ethereum by More Than Half

  • More than 100 researchers and AI agents optimized secp256k1 point-addition circuits.
  • The score fell 86.1% from 10.75 billion to 1.496 billion by July 26.
  • IonQ estimates a full secp256k1 attack needs 1,457 logical qubits and 39 million Toffoli gates.

More than 100 researchers using AI coding agents cut the resource score for a secp256k1 point-addition circuit by 86.1%, from 10.75 billion to 1.496 billion by July 26. The Eigen Labs ECDSA.Fail challenge optimized a component of the elliptic-curve arithmetic needed in a potential Shor's algorithm attack on Bitcoin and Ethereum, rather than demonstrating an ability to recover wallet private keys or break either network. The top result used 1,151 logical qubits and about 1.3 million Toffoli gates, while later designs reduced gate counts below one million and one circuit used 813 logical qubits. The measurement does not represent the resources for a complete attack, which would also require full algorithmic implementation, error correction and hardware that does not yet exist. IonQ estimates a full secp256k1 attack would require about 1,457 logical qubits, 39 million Toffoli gates, 19,397 physical trapped-ion qubits and 25.7 days of processing. Glassnode estimates that 6.04 million BTC, or 30.2% of supply, is exposed because associated public keys are visible on-chain. The development increases pressure on Bitcoin and other networks to establish secure migration paths for quantum-resistant cryptography, particularly for reused, dormant and early public-key addresses.

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