Quantum Computer Could Break Bitcoin Encryption in Just 26 Days
IonQ has published a research paper estimating that a 20,000-physical-qubit quantum computer could break the secp256k1 elliptic curve encryption used by Bitcoin in approximately 26 days. This estimate was made using IonQ's Walking Cat architecture and Shor’s algorithm.
The computation would require 19,397 physical qubits, 1,457 logical qubits, and 39 million Toffoli gates at the logical level. The company stated that this result aligns with systems on its hardware roadmap targeting the 2028 timeframe.
IonQ's President of Quantum Computing, Chris Ballance, said 'This is the first time anyone has taken a utility-scale quantum algorithm and estimated its cost without approximating away the parts that usually dominate a real machine’s runtime.'
The company emphasized that this cryptographic exposure relates to authentication and integrity rather than confidentiality. They noted that standardized mitigation methods are available and unaffected by this class of result.