Unchained
Unchained
Laura Shin
Quantum Computing Got 20x Closer. It Threatens A Third of All Bitcoin
1 hour 9 minutes Posted Apr 3, 2026 at 1:40 pm.
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Google just set a deadline. Quantum computers could break Bitcoin's encryption by 2029. Are blockchains ready?
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Google and Oratomic published quantum computing research on the same day, and together they redraw the timeline for when blockchains need to be post-quantum secure.
Google's paper, co-authored by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, estimates 2029 for breaking the elliptic curve cryptography that protects Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Oratomic's findings are sharper: utility-scale quantum computers may need only 10,000 qubits, not the millions previously assumed, and the company already has 6,000 in the lab.
With 6.7 million BTC in vulnerable addresses and a newly identified 9-minute attack window on unspent Bitcoin transactions, the question is no longer whether blockchains need to migrate. It's whether they can do it fast enough.
Guests:
⁠Alex Pruden, Co-Founder & CEO, Project Eleven
⁠Dolev Bluvstein, CEO of Oratomic
Links:
Unchained:
Q-Day Is Imminent. Can Bitcoin Survive the Quantum Threat?
Solana Deploys Post-Quantum Signatures on Testnet
Is Nic Carter Exaggerating Bitcoin's Quantum Risk? Yes, Says One Core Dev
Research Papers:
Google: Securing Elliptic Curve Cryptocurrencies Against Quantum Vulnerabilities
Oratomic: Shor's Algorithm with as Few as 10,000 Reconfigurable Atomic Qubits (arXiv)
Caltech: Useful Quantum Computers Could Be Built with as Few as 10,000 Qubits
Companies & Tools:
Project Eleven
Project Eleven: Yellow Pages
Oratomic
BIP 360: Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR)
Standards & Infrastructure:
NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards
Cloudflare: State of the Post-Quantum Internet
Google Quantum AI: Willow & Error Correction
Algorand: Quantum-Resistant Falcon Signatures
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