Google just set a deadline. Quantum computers could break Bitcoin's encryption by 2029. Are blockchains ready?

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Google and Oratomic published quantum computing research on the same day, and together they redraw the timeline for when blockchains need to be post-quantum secure. Google's paper, co-authored by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, estimates 2029 for breaking the elliptic curve cryptography that protects Bitcoin and Ethereum. Oratomic's findings are sharper: utility-scale quantum computers may need only 10,000 qubits, not the millions previously assumed, and the company already has 6,000 in the lab. With 6.7 million BTC in vulnerable addresses and a newly identified 9-minute attack window on unspent Bitcoin transactions, the question is no longer whether blockchains need to migrate. It's whether they can do it fast enough.

Guests:

⁠Alex Pruden, Co-Founder & CEO, Project Eleven

⁠Dolev Bluvstein, CEO of Oratomic

Links

Unchained:

Q-Day Is Imminent. Can Bitcoin Survive the Quantum Threat?

Solana Deploys Post-Quantum Signatures on Testnet

Is Nic Carter Exaggerating Bitcoin's Quantum Risk? Yes, Says One Core Dev

Research Papers:

Google: Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies Against Quantum Vulnerabilities

Oratomic: Shor's Algorithm with as Few as 10,000 Reconfigurable Atomic Qubits (arXiv)

Caltech: Useful Quantum Computers Could Be Built with as Few as 10,000 Qubits

Companies & Tools:

Project Eleven

Project Eleven: Yellow Pages

Oratomic

BIP 360: Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR)

Standards & Infrastructure:

NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards

Cloudflare: State of the Post-Quantum Internet

Google Quantum AI: Willow & Error Correction

Algorand: Quantum-Resistant Falcon Signatures

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