The Blubber

A new research paper by Google Quantum AI scientist Craig Gidney suggests that cracking widely used RSA encryption may require 20 times fewer quantum resources than previously thought.

Although the study does not specifically mention bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies, it targets encryption techniques that underpin the security of crypto wallets and, in some cases, transaction systems.

RSA, a public-key encryption system, is commonly used for securing data transmission. It uses a pair of linked keys: a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption.

While bitcoin itself doesn’t rely on RSA, it uses elliptic curve cryptography (ECC)—another form of public-key encryption that, like RSA, is vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm. This quantum algorithm is capable of factoring large integers and solving discrete logarithm problems, which are the foundation of modern cryptographic systems.

ECC secures data by using mathematical curves instead of massive numbers, allowing for shorter keys with equivalent security strength. But while ECC keys, such as 256-bit ones, are more secure than 2048-bit RSA keys, advances in quantum computing pose non-linear scaling threats—meaning breakthroughs could drastically reduce the timeline for viable attacks.

“I estimate that a 2048-bit RSA integer could be factored in under a week by a quantum computer with fewer than one million noisy qubits,” Gidney wrote. This is a significant revision from his 2019 estimate, which required 20 million qubits and projected an eight-hour runtime.

It’s important to note that no such quantum machine currently exists. IBM’s most advanced quantum processor, Condor, has just over 1,100 qubits, while Google’s Sycamore has 53.

Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in multiple states simultaneously due to principles like superposition and entanglement. This allows quantum machines to perform many calculations in parallel, enabling solutions to problems that classical computers can’t efficiently handle.

“This is a 20-fold decrease in the number of qubits from our previous estimate,” Gidney noted in a post. A 20x efficiency gain in breaking RSA may signal future implications for ECC as well.