{"id":56674,"date":"2022-01-27T12:12:42","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T10:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=56674"},"modified":"2025-09-04T07:37:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T04:37:43","slug":"researchers-estimate-quantum-computer-power-needed-to-crack-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/researchers-estimate-quantum-computer-power-needed-to-crack-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers Estimate Quantum Computer Power Needed to Crack Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Quantum computers would need to be roughly a million times more powerful to have the ability to crack Bitcoin&#8217;s SHA-256 hashing algorithm. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2305646-quantum-computers-are-a-million-times-too-small-to-hack-bitcoin\/\">New Scientist<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>PhD student Mark Webber from the University of Sussex (Britain) and his colleagues studied what quantum computer, in terms of the number of <span data-descr=\"an analogue of a bit, the smallest unit of information in a conventional computer\" class=\"old_tooltip\">qubits<\/span> would be required to decrypt the cryptographic key of a transaction.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe transaction is open and the key is linked to it. There is a finite window during which it is vulnerable. The window varies, but it is usually from 10 minutes to an hour, perhaps a day,\u201d Webber explained.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The team calculated that cracking Bitcoin&#8217;s encryption in 10 minutes would require a quantum computer with 1.9 billion qubits. With one hour available, the figure falls to 317 million qubits, and even with a day it would be 13 million qubits.<\/p>\n<p>Given that the most powerful quantum computer on the market is <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/ibm-doubles-the-qubit-count-on-its-quantum-chip\">127-qubit model from IBM<\/a>, these devices do not yet pose a threat to the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p>In conventional computing, Moore&#8217;s Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every two years. But in quantum computing it is replaced by Neven&#8217;s Law. According to the empirical observations of the German scientist, the power of quantum computers grows according to a double-exponential function.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, such a trajectory in conventional computing would have given us modern desktops and laptops as early as the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>Under Neven&#8217;s Law, over time quantum computers will reach power levels that pose a potential threat to Bitcoin&#8217;s encryption. However Webber believes this will not happen within the next decade.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, IBM signed a \u00a3210 million deal with the UK government to <a href=\"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/news\/ibm-to-build-uk-centre-for-quantum-computing-and-artificial-intelligence\">the creation of a quantum computing centre<\/a> and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to ForkLog&#8217;s news on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quantum computers would need to be roughly a million times more powerful to crack Bitcoin&#8217;s SHA-256 hashing algorithm, according to New Scientist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56675,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Quantum computers would require far more power to crack Bitcoin's SHA-256.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[575,2047],"class_list":["post-56674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-quantum-computers","tag-sha-256"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"55","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Quantum computers would require far more power to crack Bitcoin's SHA-256.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56676,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56674\/revisions\/56676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}