Will Quantum Computing Kill Bitcoin and Mining? Is This Alarmist?

We have systematically reviewed this 57-page paper and several key studies published concurrently to deconstruct the credibility of these claims for you. We will examine how much impact the current development of quantum computing truly has on the क्रिप्टोcurrency and mining industry, what stage the related risks are at, and whether they are genuinely imminent.

Reassessing the Technical Risk

Traditionally, Bitcoin’s security is built upon a one-way mathematical relationship. When creating a wallet, the system generates a private key, from which a public key is derived. When using Bitcoin, a user needs to prove ownership of the private key, not by revealing it directly, but by using it to generate an encrypted signature that the network can verify. This mechanism is secure because modern computers would take billions of years to reverse-engineer the private key from the public key. Specifically, the time required to crack the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) far exceeds current feasibility, which is why blockchain has long been considered cryptographically unbreakable.

However, the emergence of quantum computers breaks this rule. They operate differently; they don’t check keys one by one but explore all possibilities simultaneously, using quantum interference effects to find the correct key. To use an analogy, a classical computer is like a person trying keys one by one in a dark room, while a quantum computer is like a set of master keys that can simultaneously match all locks, more efficiently approximating the correct answer. Once quantum computers become sufficiently powerful, an attacker could quickly calculate your private key from your exposed public key and then forge a transaction to transfer your Bitcoin to their own address. Once such an attack occurs, due to the irreversible nature of blockchain transactions, the assets would be very difficult to recover.

On March 31, 2026, Google Quantum AI, in collaboration with Stanford University and the Ethereum Foundation, released a 57-page white paper. The core of this paper is to assess the specific threat quantum computing poses to the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). Most blockchains and cryptocurrencies use 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography based on the discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP-256) to protect wallets and transactions. The research team found that the quantum resources required to break ECDLP-256 have been significantly reduced.

They designed a quantum circuit running Shor’s algorithm specifically for reverse-engineering the private key from a public key. This circuit needs to run on a specific type of quantum computer, namely a superconducting quantum computing architecture. This is the primary technological path currently pursued by companies like Google and IBM, characterized by fast computation speeds but requiring extremely low temperatures to maintain qubit stability. Assuming hardware performance meets the standards of Google’s flagship quantum processors, such an attack could be completed in minutes using fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. This number is about 20 times lower than previous estimates.

To assess this threat more intuitively, the research team conducted a cracking simulation. They configured the aforementioned circuit into a real Bitcoin transaction environment and found that a theoretical quantum computer could complete the reverse derivation from a public key to a private key in about 9 minutes, with a success rate of approximately 41%. The average Bitcoin block time is 10 minutes. This means that not only are roughly 32% to 35% of the Bitcoin supply at risk of a static attack because their public keys are already exposed on-chain, but also an attacker could theoretically initiate a “race attack” to intercept and transfer funds before your transaction is confirmed. Although a quantum computer with the aforementioned capabilities does not yet exist, this discovery extends the quantum attack vector from “static asset harvesting” to “real-time transaction interception,” which has also caused significant market anxiety.

Google provided another key piece of information at the same time: the company has moved up its internal deadline for migrating to Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) to 2029. Simply put, PQC migration is about “changing the locks” on all systems that today rely on RSA and elliptic curve cryptography, replacing them with locks that are difficult for quantum computers to pick. Before Google released this white paper, this was considered a long-term engineering project. Previously, the timeline given by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was to deprecate old algorithms before 2030 and completely disable them by 2035. The industry generally thought there were about ten years left to prepare. However, based on its latest progress in three areas—quantum hardware, quantum error correction, and quantum factoring resource estimation—Google recently judged that the quantum threat is closer than previously thought, so it significantly moved its internal migration deadline forward to 2029. This objectively compresses the entire industry’s preparation cycle and sends a signal to the crypto industry: quantum computer progress is faster than expected, and security upgrades need to be scheduled earlier. This is undoubtedly a milestone study, but in the process of media dissemination, anxiety has also been amplified. How should we rationally view this impact?

Should We Actually Be Worried?

Will Quantum Computing Render the Entire Bitcoin Network Ineffective?

There is a threat, but it is concentrated at the signature security level. Quantum computing will not directly affect the underlying structure of the blockchain, nor will it invalidate the mining mechanism. Its real target is the digital signature process. Every Bitcoin transaction requires a signature with a private key to prove ownership of the funds. The network verifies whether the signature is correct. The potential capability of quantum computing is to deduce the private key after the public key is exposed, thereby forging a signature.

This presents two practical risks. One occurs during the transaction process. When a transaction is initiated and the information enters the network but has not yet been packed into a block, there is a theoretical possibility of it being preemptively replaced. This type of attack is called an “on-spend attack.” The other is targeted at addresses whose public keys have been exposed in the past, such as wallets that have been inactive for a long time or have reused addresses. This type of attack has more time and is easier to understand.

However, it is important to emphasize that these risks do not apply universally to all Bitcoin or all users. You are only threatened during the few-minute window when you initiate a transaction, or if your address has historically exposed its public key. This is not an immediate overthrow of the entire system.

Will the Threat Arrive So Quickly?

The premise of “9-minute cracking” is the existence of a fault-tolerant quantum computer with 500,000 physical qubits. Google’s most advanced Willow chip currently has only 105 physical qubits, and IBM’s Condor processor has about 1,121, which is still hundreds of times away from the 500,000 threshold. Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, estimates that the probability of a Quantum Breakthrough Day (Q-Day) occurring by 2032 is only 10%. Therefore, this is not an imminent crisis, but it is also not a tail risk that can be completely ignored.

What is the Biggest Threat from Quantum Computing?

Bitcoin is not the system most affected; it is simply the most visible in terms of value and the most easily perceived by the public. The challenge posed by quantum computing is a broader systemic issue. All internet infrastructure relying on public-key encryption, including banking systems, government communications, secure email, software signing, and identity authentication systems, will face the same threat. This is precisely why institutions like Google, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), and NIST have been continuously promoting PQC migration over the past decade. Once a quantum computer with practical attack capabilities emerges, the impact will not be limited to cryptocurrencies but will affect the entire trust system of the digital world. Therefore, this is not a single risk belonging to Bitcoin, but a systemic upgrade facing global information infrastructure.

The Imagination and Feasibility of Quantum Mining

On the same day Google published its paper, BTQ Technologies published a research paper titled “Kardashev Scale Quantum Computing for Bitcoin Mining,” quantifying the feasibility of quantum mining from both physical and economic perspectives. The author, Pierre-Luc Dallaire-Demers, conducted a complete modeling of all technical aspects involved in quantum mining, from underlying hardware to upper-layer algorithms, to estimate the actual cost of mining with a quantum computer.

The research results found that even under the most favorable assumptions, quantum mining would still require approximately 10⁸ physical qubits and 10⁴ megawatts of power, roughly equivalent to the total output of a large national power grid. Under the Bitcoin mainnet difficulty as of January 2025, the required resources skyrocket to about 10²³ physical qubits and 10²⁵ watts, approaching the energy output level of a star. In comparison, the entire Bitcoin network currently consumes about 13-25 gigawatts, differing by more than an order of magnitude from the energy scale required for quantum mining.

The study further pointed out that the theoretical speedup advantage of Grover’s algorithm would be offset by various overheads in practical engineering and could not be truly converted into mining profits. Quantum mining is impractical both physically and economically.

Google is not the only institution discussing this issue. Entities including Coinbase, the Ethereum Foundation, and the Stanford Blockchain Research Center are already advancing related research. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake commented: “By 2032, there is at least a 10% chance that a quantum computer could recover a secp256k1 ECDSA private key from an exposed public key. While a cryptographically relevant quantum computer before 2030 still feels unlikely, now is undoubtedly the time to start preparing.”

Therefore, we currently do not need to worry about quantum computing having a fatal impact on mining, as the required resource magnitude far exceeds the scope of any rational economic decision. No one would spend that much energy to compete for the 3.125 Bitcoin in a block.

Cryptocurrency Will Not Die, But It Needs to Upgrade

If quantum computing poses a question, the industry has actually always had an answer. That answer is “Post-Quantum Cryptography” (PQC), i.e., encryption algorithms that are also resistant to quantum computers. Specific technical paths include introducing quantum-resistant signature algorithms, optimizing address structures to reduce public key exposure, and completing migration gradually through protocol upgrades. Currently, NIST has completed the standardization of post-quantum cryptography, with ML-DSA (Module Lattice-based Digital Signature Algorithm, FIPS 204) and SLH-DSA (Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Algorithm, FIPS 205) being the two core post-quantum signature schemes.

At the Bitcoin network level, BIP 360 (Pay-to-Merkle-Root, or P2MR) was formally included in the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals library in early 2026. It targets a transaction pattern introduced by the Taproot upgrade activated in 2021. Taproot was originally intended to enhance Bitcoin’s privacy and efficiency, but its “key path spending” function exposes the public key during a transaction, which could potentially become a target for quantum attacks in the future. The core idea of BIP 360 is to remove this public-key-exposing path, change the transaction structure, so that fund transfers no longer require displaying the public key, thereby reducing the exposure to quantum risk at the source.

For the cryptocurrency industry, blockchain upgrades involve a series of issues such as on-chain compatibility, wallet infrastructure, address systems, user migration costs, and community coordination. It requires the joint participation of the protocol layer, clients, wallets, exchanges, custodians, and even ordinary users to update the locks for the entire ecosystem. But at least the entire industry has reached a consensus on this, and subsequent progress is merely a matter of execution and timeline.

The Headline is Alarming, Reality is Less Urgent

After a detailed analysis of these latest developments, it becomes clear that things are not as sensational as they seem. While human research into quantum computing is indeed accelerating towards reality, we still have ample time to respond. Today’s Bitcoin is not a static system but a network that has been evolving over the past decade. From script upgrades to Taproot, from privacy improvements to scaling solutions, it has continuously sought a balance between security and efficiency amidst change.

The challenge posed by quantum computing might just be the reason for the next upgrade. The quantum computing clock is ticking. The good news is that we can all hear its sound, and we still have time to react. In this era of constantly leaping computational power, what we need to do is ensure that the trust mechanisms of the crypto world always stay ahead of technological threats.

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