A recent research paper from Google has revealed that quantum computers are capable of cracking Bitcoin transactions in approximately 9 minutes.

Breaking Bitcoin encryption requires only about 500,000 qubits — significantly less than previous estimates of 20 million.
Nearly 6.9 million Bitcoins face immediate risk, with 1.7 million coins from Bitcoin's early days being the most vulnerable.
Financial analysts at Bernstein categorize the threat as "real but manageable," estimating a timeframe of 3 to 5 years to implement necessary updates.
Proposed software update BIP-360 could help mitigate the quantum risks for participants in the Bitcoin network.
A groundbreaking research paper from Google has caused shockwaves in the cryptocurrency community, revealing that quantum computing technology could jeopardize the security of Bitcoin transactions in just nine minutes.
Published on March 30 by Google's Quantum AI division, the paper presents a concerning timeline for turning this theoretical threat into a tangible reality.
According to the findings, quantum machines would need fewer than 500,000 qubits to crack the 256-bit elliptic curve encryption that secures Bitcoin addresses and transactions.
This represents a significant reduction compared to previous estimates, which suggested the need for around 10 million qubits.
The security vulnerability lies in how Bitcoin transactions temporarily expose public keys before confirmation on the network.
A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could exploit this vulnerability to extract the corresponding private key and redirect funds before the transaction is finalized on the blockchain.