TFTC on Nostr: A quantum computer just "broke" Bitcoin. Except it didn't. Not even close. Google ...

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.