A latest study shows that after researchers collaborated with a AI encoding proxy, the benchmark for quantum attacks on Bitcoin and Ethereum’s signature algorithms decreased by 86% within two months. This does not mean that funds are currently facing a real threat, but the crypto industry is re-evaluating the pace at which quantum attack research is advancing.
Benchmark costs have dropped significantly in two months.
This research focuses on the secp256k1 elliptic curve. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum currently use this mechanism to protect digital signatures. Theoretically, a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could deduce the private key from public information, which is also one of the most concerning risks of quantum attacks.
The name of this competition is ECDSA.Fail, and it was initiated by Eigen Labs. The research team uses "number of logical qubits × number of Toffoli gates" to measure the cost of the attack circuit; the lower the score, the fewer quantum resources are required.
It is mentioned in the text that this benchmark decreased from 10.75 billion to 1.496 billion, over a period from late May to July 26th. The leading solution utilized 1,151 logical quantum bits and approximately 1.3 million Toffoli gates, and subsequent submissions further reduced the number of gates to less than 1 million.
Research institutions are heavily involved.
The authors of the paper come from Eigen Labs, Trail, of, Bits, StarkWare, Theta Labs, MultiVM Labs, as well as the Ethereum Foundation. Most of the participants are from the fields of security research and infrastructure in the cryptocurrency industry.
The research team refers to this approach as “open automatic research.” Simply put, it involves researchers and AI agents continuously iterating around the same verifiable goal, with results checked by a verifier. This method is used to accelerate circuit design optimization, thereby reducing the theoretical cost of quantum attacks.
The industry's defense timeline is tightening.
At the time of this research release, the crypto industry has been accelerating its preparations for quantum resistance in recent weeks. The Ethereum Foundation has set December 2029 as the deadline for transactions, validators, and storage to achieve quantum-resistant capabilities. StarkWare has already launched the first quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on the mainnet, Ethereum developers have also proposed to rebuild the validator deposit contract, and Ripple is working on enhancing the relevant protections of XRP Ledger.
- Galaxy Promised up to $5 million in support for related work in July
- Nine institutions have pledged to invest $15 million over the next three years.
- NIST Draft proposal to discontinue the use of relevant traditional algorithms after 2035
The article emphasizes that this achievement does not mean that quantum attacks can already crack Bitcoin, nor does it imply that current users' funds are at direct risk. What is more noteworthy is that over 100 researchers, in collaboration with the AI proxy, significantly lowered key benchmarks in a short period of time, putting greater pressure on the defense side, which originally had a preparation cycle calculated on an annual basis.
