IonQ Unveils Quantum Computer Blueprint Capable of Cracking Bitcoin Encryption in 25.7 Days

Quantum computing company IonQ has unveiled a concrete design blueprint for a quantum computer capable of breaking the 256-bit elliptic curve cryptography used in Bitcoin within 25.7 days. This is not merely a theoretical estimate but the result of analyzing every step of the computation down to the hardware level, and it is expected to serve as a new benchmark for assessing the threat quantum computers pose to existing cryptographic systems.

The IonQ research team applied Shor's Algorithm to model the task of solving the secp256k1 discrete logarithm problem as a fault-tolerant quantum computing workload. The result: a system equipped with 19,397 physical qubits could crack this encryption in under 25.7 days. This figure includes all the hardware required for quantum error correction.

The design calls for 1,457 logical qubits and approximately 39 million Toffoli gates. When logical qubits are expanded into error-correctable physical qubits, the count rises to 19,397 — approaching the 20,000-qubit scale that IonQ has emphasized in its announcements.

Chris Balance, President of Quantum Computing at IonQ, said, "The research team precisely analyzed the computational process down to the fundamental error correction steps. Through detailed analysis, we were able to numerically prove a lower bound for computational success probability." He added that no digital assets or cryptocurrency platforms were attacked during the research process.