Alice & Bob Model Slashes Hardware Needed to Crack Bitcoin Keys by 17 Times

Quantum computing startup Alice & Bob released a model showing a fault-tolerant system with roughly 29,588 to 30,000 physical superconducting qubits could break Bitcoin's cryptography in approximately 62 minutes, or just over an hour. This marks a 17-fold reduction from Google Quantum AI's earlier estimate of around 500,000 physical qubits. While too slow to intercept transactions before standard 10-minute block confirmations, the model threatens over 6 million BTC held in addresses with exposed public keys. Researchers urged immediate preparation for quantum-resistant upgrades before such hardware arrives in the early 2030s.