AI Agents Cut Quantum Attack Costs on Bitcoin and Ethereum by 86%

A new paper published by researchers from Eigen Labs and other prominent crypto security teams has revealed that AI agents have significantly reduced the cost of a quantum attack on Bitcoin and Ethereum by 86% in just two months. The finding suggests that progress on the attack side can move much faster than previously thought, potentially putting pressure on blockchain security teams to adapt more quickly.

The researchers used an AI-powered method called Open Autoresearch, which pairs human expertise with coding agents to optimize circuit designs and reduce the number of computational resources required for a quantum attack. The benchmark metric dropped from 10.75 billion operations to 1.496 billion operations between late May and July 26.

The Ethereum Foundation has set a deadline for December 2029 to make transactions, validators, and storage quantum-resistant. However, the new research highlights the gap between how fast attack research can move and how slowly institutional defenses adapt. The industry is already investing in quantum-safe infrastructure, with Galaxy committing up to $5 million towards the effort.