Project Eleven has announced the Q-Day Prize, offering 1 bitcoin to the first team that successfully breaks an elliptic curve cryptographic (ECC) key using a quantum computer. This initiative underscores the significant threat that quantum computing poses to the security of Bitcoin and potentially affects over 10 million Bitcoin addresses. Shor’s algorithm, which efficiently factors large numbers, could enable quantum computers to compromise existing cryptographic standards such as those used in Bitcoin. In response, the Bitcoin community is exploring solutions to this challenge, including a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) advocating for a migration to post-quantum cryptography, though implementing such changes would require a hard fork and substantial consensus. Additionally, the quantum startup BTQ has proposed an alternative solution named Coarse-Grained Boson Sampling, which also necessitates a network update. As advancements in quantum computing progress, the urgency for effective countermeasures intensifies.

Source 🔗