Google Estimates 6.9 Million BTC Vulnerable to Quantum Attacks

Google's Quantum AI team has published a whitepaper that estimates roughly 6.9 million Bitcoin (BTC) are vulnerable to quantum 'at-rest' attacks, which could be executed on a future quantum computer.

The study found that breaking Bitcoin's 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography may require fewer than 500,000 physical qubits, a significant reduction from prior estimates of 317 million.

This vulnerability affects P2PK addresses, where the public key is permanently exposed on the blockchain. The team notes that this exposure makes them targets for future quantum at-rest attacks.