Google accelerates its post-quantum cryptography timeline to 2029 in its latest research

Google Quantum AI has released research showing that breaking Bitcoin’s encryption may require significantly fewer quantum resources than previously estimated. This discovery could potentially unlock billions of dollars in funds dormant due to private key losses.

While Google’s discovery benefits individuals with no access to their fortunes, as Elon Musk promptly pointed out, it also poses a significant risk to the safety of other active wallets.  

What did Google discover about quantum computers and Bitcoin?

Google Quantum AI’s new whitepaper demonstrates that cracking Bitcoin’s elliptic curve cryptography (secp256k1) requires roughly 20 times fewer quantum resources than previously believed. The research shows an attack could run on approximately 1,200 logical qubits with around 90 million Toffoli gate operations.

On a superconducting quantum computer with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits, researchers estimate the attack could recover a private key in minutes, and maybe even faster than Bitcoin’s 10-minute block time. However, today’s most advanced quantum chips have only around 1,000 qubits.

The Google team has set a target timeline of 2029 for completing the transition to post-quantum cryptography, which is significantly earlier than previous estimates. In order not to reveal any methods of attack, the company chose not to publish the actual quantum circuits behind its findings and instead had its researchers release a zero-knowledge proof.

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake, who contributed to the paper, said his confidence in “Q-Day” occurring by 2032 has “shot up significantly.” Drake defines Q-Day as the moment a quantum computer successfully recovers an ECDSA private key from an exposed public key.

Researchers have identified two distinct attack scenarios. 

The first, which will become an immediate threat once powerful enough quantum computers are created, is a mempool attack, where the computer captures public keys from pending transactions, cracks the private key within minutes, and then replaces the original transaction with one paying higher fees. 

The second scenario involves offline harvesting. This targets early Bitcoin addresses using the Pay-to-Public-Key (P2PK) format, where public keys are permanently exposed on the blockchain. 

Attackers could stockpile this data now and crack it later once quantum computers become available. This affects approximately 6% of the total Bitcoin supply, representing over $380 billion at current market values.

Who are the people waiting for access to lost Bitcoin?

“On the plus side, if you forgot the password to your wallet, it will be accessible in the future,” Elon Musk posted on X in response to the news.

James Howells has become the most recognizable face of lost Bitcoin stories. In 2013, his former partner accidentally threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoins that he had mined in 2009. At current prices, those coins are worth over $530 million.

For more than a decade, Howells has fought to excavate a landfill in Newport, Wales, where the hard drive was dumped. His efforts have included offering the city council a substantial share of the recovered Bitcoin, proposing advanced recovery plans involving artificial intelligence and Boston Dynamics robot dogs, and pursuing legal action.

In January 2025, a High Court judge dismissed his case, ruling there were no “reasonable grounds” to proceed and “no realistic prospect” of success even if he was allowed to try. 

The court also determined that once the waste was delivered to the landfill, it became the legal property of that town. Howells intends to file an appeal, representing himself with the help of artificial intelligence tools. 

Another high-profile case involves Stefan Thomas, the former chief technology officer of Ripple, who lost access to an IronKey hard drive containing 7,002 Bitcoins deposited in 2011. The device permanently erases its contents after 10 incorrect password attempts, and Thomas has publicly stated he has only two attempts remaining before the 7002 BTC, now worth approximately $640 million, is gone for good.

These situations are now being represented in movies. Like in Netflix’s upcoming romantic comedy “One Last Attempt,” starring Jennifer Garner. The film follows a divorced couple who win cryptocurrency on a cruise ship but forget their wallet password, and they have 48 hours to regain access before the claim expires.