Researcher cracks 15-digit ECC key, earns 1 Bitcoin reward

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Odaily Planet Daily News: Independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli has successfully cracked the encryption key protecting Bitcoin and was awarded the Q-Day prize and 1 Bitcoin by the quantum security startup Project Eleven. Giancarlo Lelli used publicly available quantum hardware and a variant of Shor’s algorithm to successfully crack a 15-bit encryption key out of 32,767 possibilities. This quantum attack is 512 times more difficult than the record 6-bit key cracked in September 2025. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated that the resource requirements for such attacks are continuously decreasing, and currently about 6.9M Bitcoin addresses are vulnerable, including 1 million Bitcoin held by Satoshi Nakamoto. The Bitcoin network has proposed BIP-360 to introduce quantum-resistant address types, and platforms like Ethereum, Ripple, and Tron have also begun releasing plans to transition to post-quantum defenses.

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