Researcher breaks 15-bit ECC key on publicly accessible quantum {hardware} in a 512x bounce from the earlier public demonstration.
NEW YORK, April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Challenge Eleven as we speak awarded the Q-Day Prize, a one Bitcoin bounty, to Giancarlo Lelli for breaking a 15-bit elliptic curve key on a publicly accessible quantum laptop. The result’s the biggest public demonstration thus far of the assault class that threatens Bitcoin, Ethereum, and over $2.5 trillion in ECC-secured digital belongings.
“The useful resource necessities for the sort of assault hold dropping, and the barrier to working it in observe is dropping with them,” stated Alex Pruden, CEO of Challenge Eleven. “The successful submission got here from an impartial researcher engaged on cloud-accessible {hardware}. No nationwide lab, no personal chip. It reveals that tangible progress is feasible and highlights the urgency emigrate to post-quantum cryptography sooner slightly than later. Google simply dedicated to being quantum-secure by 2029. The window to get forward of that is closing.”
Lelli derived a personal key from its public key throughout a search house of 32,767 utilizing a variant of Shor’s algorithm. Shor’s targets the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Downside (ECDLP), the mathematics underlying the digital signature schemes securing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most blockchains.
Quantum assaults on ECC have moved from concept to observe during the last seven months. Steve Tippeconnic’s 6-bit demonstration in September 2025 was the primary public break on quantum {hardware}. Lelli’s 15-bit consequence extends it by an element of 512.
Theoretical useful resource estimates for a full 256-bit assault, the size Bitcoin operates at, have fallen sharply over the identical interval. Google’s April 2026 whitepaper put the requirement at below 500,000 bodily qubits. A subsequent paper from Caltech and Oratomic introduced that determine as little as 10,000 qubits in a neutral-atom structure.
Lelli’s result’s the sensible counterpart to these optimizations. The space from 15 bits to 256 bits is giant, however the hole is more and more considered as an engineering drawback and never a elementary physics drawback.
Roughly 6.9 million Bitcoin sit in wallets whose public keys are seen on-chain, exposing them to quantum assault. All blockchains utilizing ECC share comparable dangers with weak belongings.
Challenge Eleven is creating its subsequent problem, targeted on the intersection of frontier AI fashions and quantum cryptanalysis.
Alex Pruden is out there for interview
About Challenge Eleven
Challenge Eleven builds resilient infrastructure and tooling for the post-quantum period. The corporate develops scalable options that strengthen safety throughout a quickly evolving quantum menace panorama. With deep experience in cryptography, blockchain, and monetary methods, Challenge Eleven bridges superior post-quantum analysis with real-world implementations that put together the digital asset ecosystem for the long run. For extra data, go to www.projecteleven.com.
Media Contacts
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