Up to 6.9 Million Bitcoins Could Be Stolen: Google Quantum AI Warns of Hacking Risk, Says "We Must Prepare Within Three Years"

[The Financial News] New research suggests that the computing power a quantum computer would need to break the cryptographic systems protecting digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum may be far lower than previously expected.
On the 31st of last month (local time), researchers at Google Quantum AI released a new white paper presenting these findings.
The team estimated that hacking Bitcoin and Ethereum would require roughly 500,000 qubits. Until now, the industry had generally believed that millions of qubits would be needed to crack cryptocurrencies, but the study indicates it might be possible with far less computing power.
Google also outlined a scenario in which this technology could be used to steal bitcoins that are in transit. If a transaction is made from a wallet whose public key (the wallet address key that is exposed externally) has been revealed, a quantum computer could calculate the private key (the secret key known only to the owner) before the block is created.
Using this method, bitcoins being sent could reportedly be stolen in about nine minutes. A new block, which bundles and records transaction data, is created on the Bitcoin network roughly every 10 minutes. Once a block is created, the transaction is finalized and further hacking is impossible. The probability of a successful theft before the block is generated was calculated at 41%.
About 6.9 million bitcoins are considered to be at risk, which is roughly one-third of the total maximum supply of 21 million.
Google has previously projected that the era of practical quantum computers will begin in earnest around 2029. In line with this outlook, it stressed that digital assets need to be migrated to quantum-resistant environments within the next three years.
The way sensitive security research is shared has also been changed. To prevent the work from being misused for criminal purposes, the researchers did not disclose step-by-step technical details on how to break the cryptographic systems. Instead, they reportedly used zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) techniques, which allow them to prove the accuracy of their results without revealing the specific methods.

sms@fnnews.com Seong Min-seo Reporter