Paper says quantum resources for potential BTC and ETH attacks are more than 50% below Google’s prior estimate
A new paper from researchers affiliated with Theta Labs, the Ethereum Foundation, StarkWare and other institutions says the resources needed for a key computational stage in potential quantum attacks on Bitcoin and Ethereum are now estimated at more than 50% below a figure previously published by Google Quantum AI. According to CoinDesk, the proposed quantum circuit design would require about 1,151 logical qubits and roughly 1.3 million Toffoli gate operations, for a combined score of around 1.5 billion. That compares with Google’s earlier figure of about 3 billion. The paper focuses on improving the point-addition component within Shor’s algorithm, which in theory could allow a sufficiently powerful quantum computer to derive a private key from a public key. Jieyi Long, CTO of Theta Labs and one of the paper’s main authors, said quantum attacks are not an immediate threat, but migration to quantum-resistant systems would take years and could not be left until after an attack occurs.
