IonQ blueprint shows quantum machine cracking Bitcoin in 26 days

IonQ published the world’s first full blueprint for a quantum computer that could break Bitcoin’s 256-bit secp256k1 encryption in about 25.7 days, requiring 19,397 physical qubits. The design uses 1,457 logical qubits and 39 million Toffoli gates, expanded to thousands of physical qubits for error correction. IonQ has not demonstrated the attack on working hardware, but compiled Shor’s algorithm into a fault-tolerant machine design. IonQ’s roadmap targets a 10,000-qubit fault-tolerant system by 2027, with further advances expected around 2028. The study serves as a benchmark for quantum engineering, though no cryptocurrency was attacked during the research.