TFTC@TFTC21
A quantum computer just "broke" Bitcoin. Except it didn't. Not even close.
Google Quantum AI published a paper showing they've cut the theoretical ECDSA attack down to 1,200 logical qubits. They didn't publish the circuits. They didn't run the attack. They published a zero-knowledge proof that their math works, then cited national security.
Here's where we actually are.
Entangled logical qubits achieved so far: 96
Coherence time: 1-2 seconds
Time the attack requires: days
Physical qubits needed: 500,000
Largest quantum computer today: 1,200 noisy, non-error-corrected qubits
That's a 100,000x coherence gap. It's not a software problem. It's a fundamental engineering problem that nobody has solved.
But here's what most people miss.
Bitcoin developers aren't waiting for a crisis. They're already shipping.
SHRIMPS: post-quantum signatures 3x smaller than NIST standards, built for Bitcoin's block space constraints.
BIP-360: a quantum-resistant output type already live on testnet, with BTQ Technologies running transactions through it.
The full upgrade could take 7 years. That's why the work started now.
The protocol will be ready before the computers are.