The quantum threat is back—and this time, it seems different!!🚨🚨
A couple of days ago, Anthropic published a paper on quantum computing titled “AI Designs More Efficient Quantum Circuits, Bringing Applications in Chemistry and Materials Science Closer.”
But the most detailed of the paper’s eight tasks was 256-bit elliptic-curve point addition. It’s a key step in using quantum computers to break the elliptic-curve discrete logarithm problem, and elliptic curves are exactly what the signatures for $BTC and $ETH use.
What did the task involve?
1. Claude Mythos 5 was given only a brief specification and an automated scorer (number of qubits × number of gates), then left to iterate in a closed loop on its own, with virtually no human intervention.
2. The most expensive step in point addition is modular inversion. Claude ran for 53 hours and produced the first reversible divsteps implementation that doesn’t need to store branch history. It also proved several new algebraic identities on its own and formally verified them using Lean.
3. Compared with the smallest design to date, it used 12% more qubits but 17 times fewer gates.
4. It also reduced the gate count of DQI’s Reed–Solomon decoder to one-twelfth of Google’s previous design.
5. For historical context: the estimated number of Toffoli gates needed to simulate FeMoco was around 50 trillion in 2017. It has now fallen to about 340 million—a reduction of roughly 150,000 times. This was mainly achieved through eight years of incremental algorithmic improvements by multiple research groups, with each step taking months.
By contrast, Claude’s elliptic-curve design took just one 53-hour run.
In other words, in just 53 hours, AI made a key step toward quantum attacks on BTC and ETH signatures more resource-efficient. Your cryptocurrency isn’t at risk of being stolen just yet, but the quantum threat may arrive sooner than people expect.
Once the hardware catches up, addresses whose public keys have already been exposed on-chain will be the first at risk. The upgrade to post-quantum signatures can’t be put off any longer!!
A couple of days ago, Anthropic published a paper on quantum computing titled “AI Designs More Efficient Quantum Circuits, Bringing Applications in Chemistry and Materials Science Closer.”
But the most detailed of the paper’s eight tasks was 256-bit elliptic-curve point addition. It’s a key step in using quantum computers to break the elliptic-curve discrete logarithm problem, and elliptic curves are exactly what the signatures for $BTC and $ETH use.
What did the task involve?
1. Claude Mythos 5 was given only a brief specification and an automated scorer (number of qubits × number of gates), then left to iterate in a closed loop on its own, with virtually no human intervention.
2. The most expensive step in point addition is modular inversion. Claude ran for 53 hours and produced the first reversible divsteps implementation that doesn’t need to store branch history. It also proved several new algebraic identities on its own and formally verified them using Lean.
3. Compared with the smallest design to date, it used 12% more qubits but 17 times fewer gates.
4. It also reduced the gate count of DQI’s Reed–Solomon decoder to one-twelfth of Google’s previous design.
5. For historical context: the estimated number of Toffoli gates needed to simulate FeMoco was around 50 trillion in 2017. It has now fallen to about 340 million—a reduction of roughly 150,000 times. This was mainly achieved through eight years of incremental algorithmic improvements by multiple research groups, with each step taking months.
By contrast, Claude’s elliptic-curve design took just one 53-hour run.
In other words, in just 53 hours, AI made a key step toward quantum attacks on BTC and ETH signatures more resource-efficient. Your cryptocurrency isn’t at risk of being stolen just yet, but the quantum threat may arrive sooner than people expect.
Once the hardware catches up, addresses whose public keys have already been exposed on-chain will be the first at risk. The upgrade to post-quantum signatures can’t be put off any longer!!