Threats to cryptocurrencies: quantum computers have reduced the time needed to crack RSA

Google has presented a study stating that its team working on quantum computing has discovered that cracking RSA encryption, used to protect data such as bank accounts and bitcoin wallets, will require significantly fewer quantum resources than previously thought – about 20 times. 

In 2019, Google's Craig Gidney and his colleagues demonstrated that Shor's algorithm can handle the destruction of standard-length RSA keys (2048 bits) in 8 hours using a quantum computer with a capacity of 20 million qubits. However, recent calculations show that a quantum computer with less than 1 million noisy qubits will be able to crack RSA encryption in less than a week. 

Despite this, such technology is not yet close to real-world application. For example, IBM's most powerful quantum computer, Condor, currently has only 1,121 qubits. As noted by Emerge, such studies suggest that owners of cryptocurrencies should pay attention to the pace of development of quantum computing and their possible consequences.