Quantum startup Project Eleven has today awarded 1 BTC ($77,736 at the time of writing) to independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli for the latest and largest demonstration of an Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) attack.
Using a public computer, Lelli obtained the secret key of a 15-bit elliptic curve from a public colleague in about 45 minutes. He used another Shor method to solve the elliptic-curve discrete logarithm (ECDLP) problem, which is based on the digital signature of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The a big event shows a 512x increase in the overall complexity of the search field, or 32,768 possible combinations of private keys, of which only one is true. It also breaks the record, the first 6-bit, which was achieved in September 2025 by Steve Tippeconnic.
Quantum computing and blockchain
Although surprisingly, the 15-bit crack is smaller than Bitcoin’s 256-bit ECC. Lelli also used 27 qubits in the attack, while Google estimated Bitcoin’s break-even point to be between 10,000 and 500,000 qubits.
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) can help create more sustainable, high-performance computers. These tools can use AI to mount attacks on Bitcoin and other blockchains.
IBM, Microsoft, and Google are some of the world’s leading technology giants in quantum technology research. The latter have set a 2029 deadline for post-quantum cryptography to reduce quantum risks.
Who is most at risk?
Addresses whose keys are exposed are among the most vulnerable. The list includes P2PK addresses that hold 6.9 million BTC, addresses that have been reused, and those that participated in the Bitcoin taproot upgrade. In the case of Bitcoin, the 10-minute transaction confirmation window that makes public keys visible creates the possibility of quantitative easing.
The distribution of blockchains makes it difficult to do connect more effort than banks, which can implement security changes overnight, if not immediately.
Cryptographic systems now have to deal with the problem of protecting their integrity in order to advance the development which is now worth 2.6 trillion dollars.
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