Tippeconnic managed to break a digital signature of the family used in Bitcoin with quantum.
The size of the digital signature that was broken was 6 bits, much smaller than the 256 used in Bitcoin.
An experiment with quantum computing showed that it was possible to break a 6-bit elliptic curve (ECC)-based digital signature. That work, published last September, was carried out by Steve Tippeconnic, an IBM developer and quantum computing specialist.
What does that have to do with Bitcoin? Digital signatures of Bitcoin transactions are protected by the algorithm ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm), belonging to the ECC familyalthough it uses 256-bit keys, millions of times more complex than the one tested in the laboratory.
Thus, although it was an extremely low scale, the result demonstrated that the physical principles capable of violating modern cryptography They are real and measurable.
CriptoNoticias exclusively interviewed the expert Tippeconnic, who with a career marked by his research on quantum, offered a cautious but active look:
The sensible position is not that it is ‘imminent’, but inevitable.
Steve Tippeconnic, quantum specialist.
An experiment that shows the power of quantum
In this first part of the interview, Tippeconnic explains that “breaking” a 6-bit elliptic curve allowed him to observe the entire quantum process on real IBM hardware.
Furthermore, he verified how the algorithm Shor can solve the mathematical problem that underpins the security of digital signaturesamong them, those of Bitcoin.
That algorithm allows a quantum computer to solve the discrete logarithm problem, which is the basis of elliptic curve cryptography (ECC, ECDSA).
It achieves this through a phenomenon called interferencein which the multiple possibilities of a system are combined with each other until highlighting those that satisfy the correct equation.
In simple words, each quantum state “tests” a relationship between the public values of the curve, and the system lets the wrong solutions cancel each other out, while the correct ones are reinforced.
This is how Tippeconnic explains it:
Instead of guessing a private key by brute force, the quantum system amplifies the correct mathematical relationship in its wave function.
Steve Tippeconnic, quantum computing specialist.
During its experiment, the quantum circuit explored “4,096 possible states” (as if each were a parallel mathematical hypothesis), but only 64 of them led to valid results.
The goal was to amplify those 64 signals among thousands of false positives, a difficult task due to hardware noise, i.e. small physical inaccuracies that distort the reading of the qubits.
To filter out that noise, Tippeconnic had to run the circuit “about 16,000 times,” accumulating measurements until the interferences formed a reliable pattern.
Each of those 16,000 executions was like taking a blurry photo of the same phenomenon, superimposing thousands of them, and thus the image began to become defined.
The researcher adds that his experience demonstrates the tangible advance of quantum physics and its disruptive potential:
The physics surprised me. Seeing how the wave functions of electrons interfered reliably, even in a circuit of more than 340,000 layers (a sequence of chained quantum operations), gave me confidence that the phenomenon is real. As hardware improves, those patterns will become sharper and sharper.
Steve Tippeconnic, quantum computing specialist.
The complexity of those 340,000 layers illustrates the central point of the experiment: the stability of quantum interference can be maintained even in extremely deep processesa crucial step towards executing larger scale algorithms.
Tippeconnic considers that his work confirms the direction of quantum progress, although without alarmism:
My experiments show that attacks based on quantum interference work on real hardware. That supports the idea that breaking Bitcoin is at least a decade away, but progress is tangible.
Steve Tippeconnic, quantum computing specialist.
Breaking small keys, a sign of the potential quantum danger towards Bitcoin
The developer managed to reconstruct private keys in 3, 4, 5 and 6 bit experiments.
In the case of the 6-bit circuit, it obtained a specific value (k = 42), which represents the private key found through the quantum interference pattern and confirmed later with a classical calculation.
In simple terms, the quantum system does not “guess” the key, but instead detects the mathematical relationship that unites the public values of the curve.
When that relationship is reinforced in the wave function, a pattern emerges that reveals the value of the key. Classical post-processing translates that physical signal into a verifiable number, like 42 in the experiment.
According to Tippeconnicthis combination of quantum interference and mathematical filtering shows that keys can be extracted when the quantum signal manages to overcome the hardware noise.
In other words, the physics that would allow breaking digital signatures in Bitcoin is observable and measurable in practice, not just in theory.
Even so, the researcher warns that scaling this method to the 256-bit curves used by Bitcoin is a challenge of another magnitude:
Scaling this to a 256-bit ECDSA is a completely different problem. We need fault-tolerant logic qubits, much lower error rates, and circuits thousands of times deeper than those that exist today.
Steve Tippeconnic, quantum computing specialist.
Therefore, your recommendation It is not about immediately migrating to new firms, but rather preparing for a gradual transition.
We do not yet know what the best post-quantum signature will be. My study does not suggest that we should migrate immediately, but rather that we should remain vigilant and adaptable. You have to study what NIST recommends, try new solutions and design systems that can evolve quickly.
Steve Tippeconnic, quantum computing specialist.
Among these initiatives, he mentions the BIP-360 proposal, reported by CriptoNoticias, which seeks to incorporate post-quantum functions into the Bitcoin signature system.