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red75prime t1_j23f2k2 wrote

Reply to comment by katiecharm in An IBM Quantum Computer Will Soon Pass the 1,000-Qubit Mark | The Condor processor is just one quantum-computing advance slated for 2023 by nick7566

Number of qubits is not the only parameter of a quantum computer. Other are qubit lifetime, gate fidelity, gate operation time, connectivity.

And, no. Even 1000 perfect qubits aren't anywhere near enough to break SHA-256 (which underlies bitcoin security).

With 1000 perfect qubits you can crack RSA-256, which could be cracked classically since 1990s.

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NeutrinosFTW t1_j23gprb wrote

Great answer! Just one note: you wouldn't necessarily need to break SHA-256 in order to break bitcoin, you could also just break ECDSA, which would allow you to spend any bitcoin in any wallet. This is possible with a large enough quantum computer, though you would need significantly more than 1000 qubits (in the hundreds of millions).

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