Quantum computers can break 15-digit ECC keys; Bitcoin’s 256-bit security is not yet a threat, but the countdown to migration is speeding up

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ME News, April 25 (UTC+8): Project Eleven today awarded the Q-Day prize to researcher Giancarlo Lelli, who used publicly accessible quantum hardware to successfully derive a 15-digit elliptic curve private key from a public key—marking the largest-scale publicly disclosed demonstration of its kind to date, a 512-fold improvement over the 6-digit demonstration in September 2025. Lelli used a variant of Shor’s algorithm for the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, which is the mathematical basis of the Bitcoin signing scheme. The winning hardware has about 70 qubits. At present, no known quantum computer can break real Bitcoin wallets, and Bitcoin’s 256-bit elliptic curve security still far exceeds current quantum capabilities. Worth noting: on March 31, Google lowered its ECDLP-256 resource estimates and set a target for migrating to post-quantum cryptography after 2029; Cloudflare promptly followed suit, and the UK’s NCSC also set migration milestones from 2028 to 2035. On-chain data shows that around 6.93 million BTC currently face potential quantum risk due to exposed public keys. The Bitcoin community has proposed BIP 360 and BIP 361 to drive migration to quantum-resistant output types, but coordinating a decentralized network remains the biggest challenge. (Source: ChainCatcher)
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