Quantum Apocalypse? Google's New Chip Could Crack Bitcoin Way Faster Than We Thought

Question

Google just dropped a reality check: breaking Bitcoin’s encryption might be 20x easier than cryptographers thought.

The company’s new Willow quantum chip (December 2024) prompted a major reassessment. Google’s quantum researcher Craig Gidney crunched the numbers and found that a quantum computer needs less than 1 million noisy qubits running for under a week to factor 2048-bit RSA integers—the same encryption protecting crypto wallets.

Previous estimates? 20 million qubits.

The math just got scarier:

Old timeline: ~8 hours with 20 million qubits (Gidney+Ekera 2019)
New timeline: <1 week with <1 million qubits
Google’s claim: Willow could solve in 5 minutes what supercomputers need 10 septillion years for

Bitcoin uses elliptic curve cryptography—mathematically similar to RSA. If quantum computers can crack RSA faster than expected, BTC’s security window just shrunk dramatically.

Why the breakthrough? Google’s team made three key improvements:

Faster algorithms—calculated modular exponentiations 2x faster
Better error correction—tripled logical qubit density by adding a new correction layer
Magic state cultivation—made quantum “T states” more reliable and efficient

The urgency is real. Project 11 just launched a 1 BTC bounty (~$85K) for anyone who can break even a toy version of Bitcoin’s encryption using quantum computers. Deadline: April 5, 2026. They’re testing 1-25 bit keys as a proof-of-concept—way smaller than Bitcoin’s 256-bit security, but the trajectory matters.

Here’s the creepy part: competitors might already be collecting encrypted data today to decrypt once quantum computers arrive. Google’s already switching to post-quantum cryptography in Chrome and internally.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology recommended phasing out quantum-vulnerable systems by 2030. But Google’s research suggests that timeline needs serious acceleration.

Meanwhile in the race:

IBM targets 100,000-qubit computer by 2030 (partnered with University of Tokyo and University of Chicago)
Quantinuum aims for a fully quantum-resistant system by 2029

Bottom line: Your Bitcoin holdings are safe for now, but the countdown just got real. The trajectory is what matters, and it’s pointing straight at crypto’s biggest vulnerability.