Recently, the Project Elev (a Quantum Computing Research Group) announced a 1 Bitcoin reward for the first team capable of conducting a challenge to demonstrate Breaking A ECC (elliptical curve creepograph) key using Shor’s algorithm on a quantum computer.
The deadline for this challenge is April 5, 2026, which means that in order to qualify for the award A team must demonstrate breaking a key couple, it must be done before that deadline.
This is frankly a completely absurd and meaningless prize for several reasons, the first of which is the deadline for almost a year from today. Even very optimistic projections of progress in quantum calculation set the timeline to practically reach such a goal of more as 5-10 years. Expecting a useful proof of concept demonstration that actually breaks a keyboard in a single year is pretty ridiculous at face value, even if you see quantum calculation as a material threat in the short term.
Next, the factor is for financial incentives. A single bitcoin is currently worth approx. $ 80,000. Honestly, it’s not a lot of money in the big thing of things. Especially when it comes to the use of a groundbreaking technology such as Quantum Computing, which can perform an entire class of calculation exponentially faster than a classic computer. Imagine how much more valuable things could be done with a working quantum computer.
You can read on Internet connections regardless of TLS, break secure connections to banks, stock brokers, private business networks that do not use cryptography after quantity. You can break any Private Messenger application on the planet, you can decrypt any PGP encrypted message sent over e -mail for which you knew the public key. You can break the entire DNS system’s certificate authority hierarchy so you can mimic any server in the world that a user is trying to connect to.
All of these things have immense value beyond just $ 84,000. Why on earth would anyone with a working quantum computer publicly reveal this fact to demand a single bitcoin when they could benefit from all these other things they would be able to do?
Okay, let’s sweep all these options aside and pretend that the whole world magically migrates to post quantum cryptography except Bitcoin. The Still makes no sense to try to publicly require this price if you have a functional quantum computer.
Let’s assume you have a hardly performing enough quantum computer that it takes a decent amount of time to crack a single key. How many just public keys are there securing 50 BTC outputs from the first mining? Thousands of them. Why on earth would you crack one and then tell everyone publicly to demand a single bitcoin? You just wanted to try to crack as many of the early coinbase rewards as possible before people discovered you.
Finally, the schedule on your own is just absurd. Quantum computers are currently not even able to factor in first -class numbers that people can do themselves in their heads mentally. In a single year, will the technology jump from it to cracking Bitcoin keys? It’s absurd.
So what the hell is the point of this award except some advertising stunt? It is completely meaningless as a serious bounty to act as a canary in the coal mine for us, no matter how concerned or carefree you are with the time frames of quantum computers as a threat.
This bounty is a joke.
This article is a take. Opinions expressed are completely the author’s and does not necessarily reflect BTC Inc or Bitcoin magazine.