Key Takeaways
- Google researchers say cracking RSA encryption now needs 20x fewer qubits than previously estimated.
- Bitcoin uses ECC and SHA-256, which are stronger than RSA, but the timeline for cracking them may also be short.
- Rapid progress in quantum computing is shrinking the crypto security window faster than expected.
Bitcoin (BTC) wallets and traditional banking systems may be far less secure against quantum threats than once believed.
According to new research from Google, cracking RSA encryption—a system still widely used in finance—might require just a fraction of the quantum computing power once assumed necessary.
Bitcoin’s Encryption May Be Next
Craig Gidney, a researcher on Google’s quantum team, revealed that a 2048-bit RSA key could now be broken in under a week using fewer than 1 million noisy qubits.
That’s a dramatic drop from the 20 million qubits estimated in 2019, a 20x improvement driven by better algorithms and improved quantum error correction.
While Bitcoin doesn’t use RSA directly, it relies on a cryptographic cousin: elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and SHA-256.
These are currently more resistant to quantum attacks, but the breakthrough suggests that Bitcoin’s encryption defenses may also erode faster than expected.
The implications are serious.
In 2012, researchers estimated it would take a quantum machine with 1 billion qubits to break Bitcoin’s encryption.
That dropped to 20 million by 2019. Now, we’re looking at fewer than 1 million qubits to crack RSA, suggesting that Bitcoin’s quantum-safe window is rapidly closing.
From Far-Off Theory to Near-Term Risk
Quantum computing has long been viewed as a distant threat to crypto security.
However, with Google’s latest quantum computer breakthroughs, the timeline is accelerating.
The researchers credit their success to enhanced error correction and a refined algorithm that slashes the number of operations needed from 1000x to just 2x.
Although Bitcoin’s SHA-256 encryption is still more robust than the RSA protocols tested, experts say it’s only a matter of time before quantum systems catch up.
As quantum computing races ahead, the crypto industry may soon need to rethink wallet encryption—and prepare for a post-quantum future sooner than planned.
