Crypto
AI Agents Slash Quantum Resource Score for Bitcoin by 86.1%
A team of researchers used AI agents to optimize a key quantum computing task linked to Bitcoin, reducing the resource score by 86.1%.
The optimization focused on a narrow part of the attack process, specifically secp256k1 point-addition circuits, and was done through the ECDSA.Fail contest launched by Eigen Labs in May.
The result shows that software improvements can reduce the quantum resources needed for secp256k1 calculations, but it does not show that Bitcoin has been hacked.
According to IonQ estimates, a complete secp256k1 attack would require about 1,457 logical qubits and 39 million Toffoli gates, which is equivalent to 19,397 physical trapped-ion qubits and about 25.7 days of processing time.