Researcher Cracks 15-Bit ECC Key on Quantum Hardware, Wins 1 BTC

A 512-Fold Leap in Quantum Crypto Attacks Signals Q-Day Is Closer Than You Think

Techsankar2 min read·Just now

In a stunning demonstration of quantum computing’s disruptive potential, independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli has shattered a 15-bit elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) key using publicly available quantum hardware. The feat earned him Project Eleven’s Q-Day Prize — a full Bitcoin bounty — highlighting how rapidly quantum threats to blockchain security are evolving.

The Narrowing Gap to Real-World Attacks:

Lelli employed a variant of Shor’s algorithm to solve the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem across a search space of 32,767 possibilities. This marks a 512-fold scale-up from the prior 6-bit record set by Steve Tippeconnic on IBM’s 133-qubit system last fall.

Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden emphasized the implications: "The resource requirements keep dropping. This came from an independent researcher on cloud hardware." Recent papers from Google Quantum AI and Caltech suggest a full 256-bit ECC break could require under 10,000 qubits — an engineering challenge, not a physics barrier.

Key stats at a glance:

This article was originally published on Bitcoin Tag and is republished here under RSS syndication for informational purposes. All rights and intellectual property remain with the original author. If you are the author and wish to have this article removed, please contact us at [email protected].