Bitcoin to be cracked before 2030? Google Willow's "Quantum Echo" sparks expert debate: Most Public Keys have already been exposed.

Google has introduced the “Quantum Echoes” algorithm in Willow, surpassing the supercomputer Frontier by 13,000 times in speed. Quantum computers are shadowing, and the Bitcoin encryption layer may be quietly pried open, leading experts to debate the timeline for Bitcoin decryption and the defense of public assets. (Background: The founder of Solana warns that Bitcoin may soon be decrypted: without upgrading against quantum by 2030, it will crash.) (Context: El Salvador has split 6,285 Bitcoins into 14 wallets to resist quantum attack threats.) Quantum computers are approaching the defense line of the encryption world. Google officially announced this week that its Willow quantum chip, combined with the “Quantum Echoes” algorithm, has achieved the world's first “verifiable” quantum advantage. The research team pointed out that the OTOC task, which would take the Frontier supercomputer about 3.2 years to compute, was completed by Willow in just 2 hours, leading by 13,000 times. This symbolizes that quantum computing can now be independently verified and has practical value, also triggering associations with Bitcoin decryption. The operation of invisible quantum attacks is highlighted by Naoris Protocol CEO David Carvalho, who pointed out the key to this crisis. He said: This is the single biggest threat Bitcoin has faced since the global financial crisis… Before it happens, everything looks like legitimate access, but it may have already controlled the system for months ( ghost attack ). If the technology continues to evolve, attackers with sufficiently powerful quantum computers could use the Shor algorithm to derive private keys from public keys, effectively holding a master key. It is currently estimated that about 6.65 million Bitcoins have long been exposed due to the reuse of addresses. The market chain reaction after wallet breaches Once an attack occurs, the wallets that have not changed addresses early on may be the first to be targeted. Quranium CEO Kapil Dhiman warned that the massive Bitcoins held by Satoshi Nakamoto could be the first to be hit; if these coins that have remained unchanged for many years suddenly transfer, market confidence will undoubtedly collapse, and the price of Bitcoin will rapidly dip, further impacting the traditional capital market through derivations. More complicated is that the blockchain verification mechanism does not report errors; blocks continue to be generated, and the ledger appears intact, yet it has lost the mapping of true ownership. Opposition voices: Worrying unnecessarily Regarding Google's significant breakthrough, Mysten Labs co-founder and chief cryptographer Kostas Kryptos Chalkias mentioned that the current capability to process bits is still far from what is needed to decrypt Bitcoin. Even with significant advancements, there is still about a ten-year gap before it can be realized. Currently, there is no evidence that any computer, even a confidential computer, can decrypt modern cryptography. We are still at least 10 years away from this goal. Another tech blogger, Mental Outlaw, said that the length of modern encryption keys ranges from 2,048 bits to 4,096 bits, while current quantum computers can only break about 22 bits or shorter keys. The computation to break higher-bit keys is beyond exponential difficulty, and there will not be a large-scale upgrade of qubits for a long time. Bitcoin defense: The decentralization dilemma Regardless of how quantum experts debate, how long until quantum computers can decrypt traditional cryptography? Traditional institutions have already begun to prepare for post-quantum encryption (PQC) deployment. Bitcoin, however, is limited by decentralized governance, requiring consensus among miners, nodes, and users for any significant changes. Currently, the Bitcoin community has proposed relevant solutions: for example, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 proposes a “Pay to Quantum Resistant Hash (P2QRH)” mechanism, attempting to introduce NIST-recommended ML-DSA and SLH-DSA signatures, while striving to avoid hard forks. Ethereum developers are also testing lattice-based signatures; new chains like Naoris Protocol, Quranium, and Quantum Resistant Ledger are incorporating quantum security at the architectural level. Experts estimate that quantum computers capable of actually breaking ECDSA may appear in 10 to 15 years, with a timeline pointing to the mid-2030s. For general users, the most direct protection is to develop the habit of “new payments, new addresses” to minimize public key exposure, reducing risks before the true quantum era arrives. Related reports Bitcoin's quantum leap: How will everything change in 2030? Musk's serious question: Can quantum computers break Bitcoin? In the face of quantum attacks, should Satoshi Nakamoto's 1.09 million Bitcoins be moved? This article, titled “Bitcoin to be decrypted before 2030? Google Willow's 'Quantum Echoes' sparks expert debate: Most public keys have long been exposed,” was first published in BlockTempo, the most influential blockchain news media.