Project Eleven Awards 1 BTC After Record Quantum ECC Break Raises Crypto Security Alarm

TLDR:

• Project Eleven paid 1 BTC after a researcher broke a 15-bit ECC key using public quantum hardware
• Giancarlo Lelli expanded the previous public quantum ECC record by 512x from the 2025 result
• Around 6.9 million Bitcoin sit in wallets with public keys visible on-chain and exposed
• New research cut estimates for full Bitcoin quantum attacks to as low as 10,000 qubits

Project Eleven has awarded a one Bitcoin bounty after a researcher completed the largest public quantum attack on elliptic curve cryptography to date. The breakthrough involved breaking a 15-bit elliptic curve key using publicly accessible quantum hardware. 

The result renewed attention around long-term security risks for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchain networks using ECC. It also pushed post-quantum security discussions back into focus across the crypto market.

Quantum ECC Break Expands Bitcoin Security Debate

Project Eleven said researcher Giancarlo Lelli won its Q-Day Prize after deriving a private key from a public key across a 32,767 search space. He used a variant of Shor’s algorithm on cloud-accessible quantum hardware.

The method targeted the Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem, which supports digital signature systems used by Bitcoin and Ethereum. These systems protect wallets, transactions, and ownership verification across major blockchains.

Project Eleven stated that this was the largest public demonstration of this attack class so far. The previous public record came in September 2025, when Steve Tippeconnic completed a 6-bit demonstration.

Lelli’s result increased that benchmark by a factor of 512. The company noted that no private chip or national laboratory was involved in the test.

Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden said the falling hardware barrier makes the issue more urgent. He pointed to Google’s public target of becoming quantum-secure by 2029 as a sign that migration timelines are tightening.

The company said roughly 6.9 million Bitcoin remain in wallets with visible public keys on-chain. Those wallets could face exposure if large-scale quantum attacks become practical.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Face Long-Term Post-Quantum Pressure

The gap between a 15-bit test and Bitcoin’s full 256-bit encryption remains large, but recent research has changed the discussion. New estimates suggest the resource demands are falling faster than expected.

Google’s April 2026 whitepaper placed the requirement for a full 256-bit attack at fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. That estimate marked a major reduction from older assumptions.

A later paper from Caltech and Oratomic lowered that figure further to around 10,000 qubits using a neutral-atom architecture. Project Eleven described Lelli’s test as the practical side of those theoretical improvements.

The company said the challenge now looks more like an engineering problem than a physics limitation. That shift matters for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other ECC-based systems securing more than $2.5 trillion in digital assets.

Project Eleven is now preparing its next challenge around AI models and quantum cryptanalysis. The firm said the next phase will examine how frontier AI tools may accelerate future cryptographic attacks.

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