Bitcoin Security Boosted by AI but Quantum Risk Persists
A recent breakthrough in quantum computing has sparked new concerns for Bitcoin's security. Researchers used AI agents to optimize a key process called secp256k1 point-addition, reducing the resource score by 86.1%. However, this improvement only addresses a small part of the attack process and does not guarantee full protection.
The researchers focused on improving one specific subroutine, rather than the entire private-key recovery process. According to IonQ, a complete secp256k1 attack would still require approximately 1,457 logical qubits and 39 million Toffoli gates.
Meanwhile, Glassnode estimates that around 6.04 million BTC, or 30.2% of the total supply, has public keys exposed on-chain. This exposure increases the risk of a quantum attack if a sufficiently fast computer becomes available.