The quantum computing power required to break the encryption that secures blockchains continues to decline, at least in theory, raising the question of whether the industry can migrate to quantum-resistant platforms before they become vulnerable at an affordable cost.
A new paper by Caltech and quantum startup Oratomic suggests a system with around 26,000 qubits could break ECC-256, the encryption standard that secures the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, in about 10 days. RSA-2048, used by financial institutions to secure their Web2 platforms, is more challenging, they found.
The researchers found the cryptography protecting bitcoin and ether (ETH) wallets could be broken using as few as 10,000 physical qubits, collapsing…
