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 BTC$66,674.62 and ether (ETH) wallets could be broken using as few as 10,000 physical qubits,…