1 BTC Bounty: Cracking Bitcoin's Quantum Cryptography
1 BTC Bounty for Quantum Cryptography Breakthrough
Project Eleven, a quantum computing collective, has issued a challenge to the global cryptography community: the first team to successfully break a downscaled version of Bitcoin's elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) using a real quantum computer before April 5th, 2026, will win one Bitcoin. This "Q-Day Prize" highlights a growing concern within the Bitcoin ecosystem: the potential vulnerability to large-scale, error-corrected quantum computers capable of running Shor's algorithm.
The challenge doesn't involve directly attacking Bitcoin's 256-bit curve. Instead, teams must crack ECC keys ranging from one to twenty-five bits. While considered "toy" versions by cryptographers, breaking even a three-bit key would provide a significant benchmark, demonstrating quantum progress against the elliptic-curve discrete logarithm problem (ECDLP). Project Eleven emphasizes the need for rigorous benchmarking since this threat remains largely unquantified.
The Challenge Details
To qualify for the prize, submissions must include:
- Gate-level code or runnable instructions for quantum hardware.
- Detailed explanation of methods, error management, and classical post-processing.
Hybrid attacks using classical shortcuts are disallowed. All submissions will be publicly released to foster transparency.
Why This Challenge?
Bitcoin's security relies on the difficulty of the discrete logarithm problem on the secp256k1 curve. Shor's algorithm could theoretically solve this problem in polynomial time, significantly reducing the computational cost. Estimates suggest 2,000 fully error-corrected logical qubits (potentially requiring millions of physical qubits) could threaten a 256-bit key. Companies like Google, IBM, and IonQ are actively pursuing this technology.
Project Eleven views the prize as a diagnostic tool. Millions of Bitcoin addresses holding over six million BTC (>$500 billion at current prices) have already exposed their public keys. If quantum computing advances before these coins are migrated to post-quantum addresses, the funds are at risk of theft. The challenge aims to accelerate our understanding of the timeframe and capabilities needed to breach Bitcoin's cryptography.
Alternative Approaches
This initiative comes amidst other proposals to enhance Bitcoin's quantum resistance. The Quantum-Resistant Address Migration Protocol (QRAMP) seeks a network-wide migration to post-quantum key formats, but requires a potentially challenging hard fork. BTQ has also suggested a proof-of-work alternative, Coarse-Grained Boson Sampling, also needing a hard fork for implementation.
The Technical Hurdles
Even a five-bit ECC key presents immense technical challenges. It requires qubits with extremely high fidelities (>99.9%) and coherence times of hundreds of microseconds, orchestrated through complex circuits. Error correction significantly increases the engineering difficulties.
However, the prize's allure may attract university labs and corporations possessing advanced quantum hardware like IBM's Quantum System Two. The results, regardless of success, will provide crucial data on the progress and potential threats of quantum computing.
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At press time, BTC traded at $84,771.